“There are many violations of child rights here. Many poor children can’t afford to go to school. Some of them work by cleaning cars and taxi motorbikes, while others work at the rubber factory, collect scrap iron which they then sell, fish or work in agriculture.”
It’s important that we, the Child Rights Ambassadors, explain that every child has the right to go to school. Children shouldn’t work! Here, it’s also common for poor parents to force their daughters to marry while they’re still children. The man who marries the girl pays a dowry to her parents. They sell girls as if they were goods. That’s not right. A girl should go to school so she can have a good life. So she can get a job, support herself and live her dream, instead of just looking after her husband and the home.
"They sell girls as if they were goods. That’s not right".
Here in Cameroon, girls do nearly all the household chores, like cleaning, cooking, washing-up and laundry. They almost never have any time to meet their friends or do homework. That’s wrong! As boys, it’s important that we help out at home so the girls have more time to themselves. That way, things will be fairer. My dream is to become an engineer and build factories where people can get a job, since there are so many unemployed people here.
Keranso, 15, WCP Child Rights Ambassador, Koel Bilingual Institute, Tiko
Långgatan 13, 647 30, Mariefred, Sweden
Phone: +46-159-129 00 • info@worldschildrensprize.org
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