The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), in collaboration with the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDRC) Commission in Northern Bahr el Ghazal, on Wednesday started a three-day workshop to increase awareness on grave child violations including, killing and maiming, attacks on schools and health facilities and sexual abuses, among others.
Speaking to Radio Tamazuj on Wednesday, Northern Bahr el Ghazal State DDRC Director Ajou Kuek said the 50 participants are drawn from government ministries and the armed forces, including SSPDF, National Security, South Sudan National Police Service, and will be tasked to carry out dissemination and awareness about the violation of children.
“The workshop is mainly focusing on the dissemination and awareness against grave violations against children and violations committed by the government forces and rebel groups like Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLA-IO) and others during the years of conflict,” he explained. “The people need to be aware of what happened and how the government is going to address those crimes.”
For his part, Lt. Colonel Alberto Buola, the Chief of Moral Orientation and Child Protection Focal Point at the SSPDF’s 3rd Division in Wunyiik, Aweil East County, said the country has to work harder to realize improvements in the conditions of children.
“The importance of this workshop is to make sure that South Sudan has implemented the action plan regarding six grave violations against children because we are blacklisted for committing them,” he stressed. “The current need from South Sudanese is to respect all child rights and abstain from committing such violations and to make sure that South Sudan is delisted from the list of countries committing child abuses.”
Meanwhile, Aweil-based activist Maria Amou Yel commended the UNMISS and urged them to extend similar trainings to county, payam, and boma levels, where violations against children, including forced and early marriages, are rampant.
“I appreciate the workshop and I request UNMISS to extend this workshop to the grassroots because most of the communities out there are suffering from cases of underage child marriages, which is denying them education,” he stated.
On his part, Barnaba Aguer Deng, Director General at the state information ministry, emphasized that it is illegal to recruit and conscript children in the army.
“The workshop is based on humanitarian operations and techniques for handling children who are not supposed to be recruited into the military. If children are found in army ranks, then the UN and all concerned bodies have a right to has the right to remove and delist them from military apparatus.”