World Children’s Day: Raising the voices of children

Hi World!

I’m Cute. I know what you are thinking but that is actually my name! I am a 16-year-old girl. I live in a small rural community in Zimbabwe. I live with my mom and my little sister.

My mom is not formally employed like a lot of people in my community. So, the COVID-19 lockdown meant our stall at the local market place was closed. That meant we had no more money coming in and could only afford two small meals per day.

Shortage of clean water is a huge problem in my community. Community wells have dried up and the few boreholes available are simply not enough. As a result, me and my peers wake up as early as 4 am to join the long queues at the boreholes. Even then there is no guarantee that you get the water. A lot of girls my age, are abused by borehole queue marshals who ask for sexual favours in exchange for a place in front of the queue. Often, we have no choice but to take the little money we have and buy water instead of food.

The COVID-19 lockdown meant schools were closed too. Everyone started talking about online education. To access this education, you need a smartphone and funds to pay to access the Internet. For me and my peers, and I know we are in the majority, it is just like pie in the sky. We simply cannot afford it. That is our right to education gone!

I did a little survey after talking to so many young girls who were complaining about sanitary pads. I found out that as much as nine girls out of ten could not afford sanitary pads. They were using unhealthy material out of desperation. I know it might be frowned upon to bring it up to the whole world but to a girl growing up, sanitary pads are an absolute necessity.

Due to these problems a lot of children have turned to drug abuse and child prostitution. It is a desperate situation and most children have lost hope. The world talks about the COVID-19 lockdown in order to avoid infection and possible death. How does that make sense to children who do not know if there will be food to eat tomorrow and could die from hunger anyway?

Help us sink more boreholes. It is urgent and should be a priority! I see so many expensive cars driven by council officials and I just wonder how many boreholes the value of just one car could provide?

Leaders of the world, the next time you lockdown the world:

• Please put aside just a little bit of money aside to help families who can no longer help themselves.
• Please make the access to education on the internet available to us all so that we all can benefit, rich or poor.
• Please help us with sewing machines, material and training and we can make our own reusable pads at school and provide enough supply for all girls in our community.

A big hug to every child struggling every day to keep hope of a better future alive. The future is ours!