The Rights of the Child in Mozambique: ONE VIOLATION EVERY TWO HOURS
Mozambique´s Child Helpline (Linha Fala Criança - LFC) registered in the first quarter of this year (2024) a daily average of 12 reports of child rights violations. Most of them are related to early marriages, sexual abuse and access to education, with most survivors being female.
Non-governmental organisation World Vision Mozambique (WV-Moz), the Helpline partner, believes that released data should trigger strengthened action by state institutions, the government, and civil society.
The time for reflection and research is over. There is an urgent need to put an end to this tendency, which is increasingly at odds with the Mozambique we want for all children, regardless of their race, social status, or other factors. WV-Moz further believes that unconditional implementation of legislation is the way forward, while community-based awareness-raising and mobilization actions continue to multiply.
According to LFC's report, out of 1,144 cases notified in the reporting period, 43 involved children with disabilities. These figures call for an inclusive and proper Hotline for receiving and responding to reports by children with different types of disabilities, who are in multiple vulnerabilities due to their condition.
WV-Moz also calls for Linha Fala Criança to be acknowledged and valued for the public service it provides. For this purpose, WV-Moz recommends that the government consider leading collective efforts to mobilize technical and financial resources to enable not only the operation but also the scale-up of Linha Fala Criança. LFC has facilitated access by minors to justice institutions and other support services for suvirvors of various types of incidents related to children, adolescents and young people, by referring cases to the relevant authorities and services, thus strengthening the operation of Mozambique's existing systems and mechanisms to respond to violence against children.
In its latest report, Linha Fala Criança says it answered "24,077 calls in the first quarter of 2024, of which 19,569 were intervention calls, i.e. calls that lasted at least one minute with the possibility to collect users' demographic information. Intervention calls resulted in 1,144 cases with 1,214 survivors involved. The largest number of callers who contacted LFC were male, especially children, and most of these calls came from Zambezia, Nampula and Cabo Delgado provinces.
A geographic breakdown of the report shows that the largest number of cases were notified from the Central region of the country, where Zambezia, Manica and Sofala influenced 45%, followed by the Northern region, with 44%, influenced by Nampula and Cabo Delgado provinces. Lastly, the Southern region of the country reported the fewest cases, with 12%. (x)