YOKOHAMA
CONGRESS ENDS...
YOUTHSPEAK
'I
Learned Many Things'
By Keketso
Mochochoko, 16, from Maseru, Lesotho
I
learned many things in this congress, because in my country
there are many problems that we cannot solve on our own but
on which
we need help from other countries, like Japan,
because
the traffickers are not to go free but to be given
long sentences.
Two months
back, we held a meeting of Southern African
countries in Johannesburg,
South Africa, to talk about the same topic. We
shared experiences
and how to solve problems, like sexual abuse, that
must be reported
immediately because young people might be infected
with HIV/AIDS.
In this
meeting, I have learnt that sexual exploitation is not only
our problem alone. Everyone is involved. From this congress,
I will speak to other young people about the
commercial sexual
exploitation of children, that those who have the
opportunities
to go to school should carry on, and those without
them should
keep themselves busy, not going to the townships or loitering
in towns because of high trafficking of children.
I learned
to speak to other children, for them to speak about
sexual abuse,
because in my country many children are being abused by their
family members but they cannot speak out to adults
because nothing
will be done about it.
Parents
would rather tell the child to keep quiet for the neighbours
not to hear or to know, like from Hawaii and Bangladesh. If
only there could be a unit of those children in
these problems,
the number of child sexual abuse cases would
decrease.
In conferences
like this, children are never satisfied because many changes
were promised to them by adults but never fulfilled. There is
the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but children are
still being abused.
This happens
because there are no follow-ups by our governments. We just
need an environment suitable for young children. For all the
young children of Africa, I have to say: "Men
should stop demanding
sex from girls. Men's demand should not be fulfilled in all
means.''
