The Dilemma of Children in Leadership and Crisis
attacks, whose target was to target young girls.
In Albania too, majority of the traumatized refugees are children, they remained to be worried about their safety others too were worried because of the brutal killing of their parents or loved ones.
Children have been the main victims of war. It is believed that their status can be risky because they are open to different types of danger. If we can also get some facts from Save the Children’s report, it was clear that young girls in Refugee camps were sexually exploited in the West African Sub-region. UNICEF report is a basic fact because in most war ravaged countries today, prostitution is common no matter the age of the girls. Moreover young girls are using sex today as a quick way to get money.
Children are defenseless, in refugee camps, they are targeted by wealthy personnel or most likely some aid workers who are not tutored on their code of conduct. In the cities girls are not spared, some mothers because of hardship in the home, they might push their daughter on wealthy men on the street so that they can get something in the home.
Further factors that leads children on the street:
Humiliation and stress can cause teenagers to abscond from their parents and seek out for a free life which will later usher them into prostitution or become highway robbers.
Pornography can also misdirect the vision or good intention of children to prostitution or any other practice because what they have seen in magazine, books TV or the Internet, they too will put them to practice.
In a peaceful home where there is no parental care, there are all tendencies that some of the kids will become hookers, thieves or will join street gangs. The reason for this is because the parents fail to take their part in the home. I once told a father of 5 children that “a home without parents or caretaker, is dead”, simply because there will be disorder.
In Article 9 in the convention on the right of the child, it states that:
1. States Parties shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will, except when competent authorities subject to judicial review determine, in accordance with applicable law and procedures, that such separation is necessary for the best interests of the child. Such determination may be necessary in a particular case such as one involving abuse or neglect of the child by the parents, or one where the parents are living separately and a decision must be made as to the child’s place of residence.
Allan Metzger is a Sierra Leonean by nationality, an International Trade Expert and a Research Fellow. He has worked in various disciplines as a humanitarian, an Economic Researcher and a Freelance Writer. In the media part of his life, he has worked as a Reporter and Presenter for ABC Television Africa, Sierra Leone, a staff writer for CRITIC Magazine International, a guest Writer for the Newday Magazine and he has also served as a Guest Writer for the Exclusive Newspaper all in Sierra Leone. He has covered stories as a JHR reporter at the Special Court for Sierra Leone. He was the journalist who took initiative interview political party leaders on the aftermath of the Local Election in Sierra Leone in 2008. He has also published several articles in the Print and electronic media in Sierra Leone. Based on his expertise, he was entrusted with an EU TradeCom Consultancy job for it research purposes. Allan is a member of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalist (SLAJ) and a Member of the Freelance Association in the UK. By discipline, he is an Economist, Researcher and a Writer. He got his discipline from the Writers Bureau College of Journalism and from the Cambridge College all in the UK. He has travel extensively in the Sub Sahara Africa countries, Switzerland and few European Countries. He also has sound knowledge of all key issues under EPA, WTO, ECOWAS/Common External Tariff (CET) – negotiations including Rules of Origin, Customs Regulations and compliance, Standards (SPS/TBT/MRL).