From the Facebook page of the Media Network on Child Right’s and Development
Last week, after months of relative silence, Pastor George Kalamo stepped into a Lusaka courtroom to stand trial for allegedly murdering his teenage niece, Ruth Mbandu. As the news media churns out headlines related to the case, 16-year-old Kanengo Nakamba will be watching – and possibly producing some media of her own.
“It’s just this case that has been looked at with attention,” she says, lamenting the mainstream media’s patchy coverage of defilement in Zambia.
Nakamba is one of 72 young Zambians working with the Children News Agency, a national news crew based in the Chilenje South offices of Media Network on Child Right’s and Development (MNCRD). Trained under the aegis of Prisca Sikana – affectionately known as Coach P – school children between 12 and 16 years old dabble in all media streams, producing online content and partnering with mainstream entities like Radio Phoenix, Muvi TV and, most recently, the Times of Zambia. The agency has been in full swing since 2009, and Sikana envisions some form of at least minor partnership with all of Zambia’s media outlets by the end of 2013.
“We want to empower children with media skills and children’s rights knowledge, so they’re able to articulate on the issues that affect them so they can be part of the decision-making process,” Sikana says. “When they write, when they do radio programs or TV, they will reach a larger audience.”
Children’s rights in Zambia, as in many developing countries, are in shambles. The country is a source, transit link, and destination for trafficked children destined for lives of sexual exploitation and forced labour. While the country has both signed and ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, it’s often criticized for spotty implementation of the convention’s protocols.
In a 2012 report on child trafficking, the United States Embassy in Lusaka put forward a plethora of recommendations, from investigate capacity building in the judiciary and law enforcement to the development of bilateral agreements between nations like South Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The report did applaud the government’s decision to quadruple its anti-trafficking budget from $3 million to $13 million.
But 17-year-old Victor Kanguya, also a reporter with the agency, sees little progress, citing child labour situations as the precipice from which many other issues tumble into existence. Children who are born into poverty, he says, are sent into city streets to make money, and they’re victimized from there.
“They are taken advantage of,” he says. “They are defiled. They are trafficked.”
Young girls, meanwhile, face different challenges to their convention rights. Reporter Elsie Samboko, 16, sees traditional labour divisions in the household as hurdles to progress. Many families often chose to educate boys instead of girls, leaving the latter at home to do housework.
“It’s normal by virtue of being a girl,” she says, adding that early marriage is another common, traditional practice that violates the rights of young girls. “You find these girls in rural areas, and even urban areas, they get married early without their permission and mostly to older men.”
Before starting the agency, staff at MNCRD audited Zambia’s mainstream media and found little in the way of informed reporting on children’s rights issues. In addition to the agency, MNCRD also performs sensitization seminars, visiting media houses and teaching with editors and reporters about children’s rights issues and their legal contexts. This year, the sensitization program is expanding into the University of Zambia’s journalism program.
“Our biggest challenge as an organization is the media doesn’t want to focus on children,” Sikana says. “They don’t see children as newsmakers. They cover politicians and celebrities.”
Paul Carlucci is a Lusaka-based freelance journalist. He contributes often to Think Africa Press and is the author of The Secret Life of Fission, out this fall through Canada’s Oberon Press. Follow him on twitter @paulcarlucci
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