Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo on Tuesday asked African societies to use the Day of the African Child as an opportunity to reflect on ways to create a better future for children.
She also asked all organisations, including civil society, to strategise and provide a much more secure environment to enhance the proper nurturing of all African children.
In a message to mark the Day of The African Child, which falls on June 16 each year, Mrs Akufo-Addo, said: “It is a poignant reminder to us of the horrors the African Child has encountered throughout history”.
“Whether in demanding better education, nutrition or any other necessities of basic living, the African Child should never have to feel threatened in wanting a better life,” she said.
While joining all well-meaning Africans in remembrance of the Day, the First Lady said the Rebecca Foundation would continue to work to ensure that it created “fighters and champions for the young ones.”
The Day was on the theme: “30 Years after the Adoption of the Charter: Accelerate the Implementation of Agenda 2040 for an Africa fit for Children”.
It is commemorated annually to remember hundreds of South African children killed while protesting in Soweto on June 16, 1976.
Hundreds of over a thousand black schoolchildren in Soweto, who took to the streets to protest the inferior quality of their education and to demand their right to be taught in their own language, were shot down.
Within the two weeks of protest that followed, more than a hundred people were killed and more than a thousand injured.
Therefore to honour their courage and in memory of those who lost their lives, the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union) established the Day of the African Child in 1991.
It is also used to draw attention to the lives of African children presently.
The African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, in 2016, established a 25-year Agenda, namely: “Agenda 2040: Fostering an Africa fit for Children”.
The main objective of the Agenda is to restore the dignity of the African Child through assessing the achievements and challenges for the effective implementation of the African Children’s Charter.
