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UN Radio
UN and Africa
Programme Number: 122
Week of: Sunday, 15th October, 2006
Recording Date: Thursday, 19th October, 2006
Topical Issue(s):
" A new study UN says that millions of children
around the world are victims of many forms of violence.
UNICEF's Deputy Executive Director, Rima Salah, says
that poverty makes African children more vulnerable
to violence by traffickers and unscrupulous individuals
who employ them.
" As the UN observes the World Food Day, the Prime
Minister of Mozambique, Prime Minister Luisa Diogo talks
about how her country is fighting poverty by investing
in agriculture. She says the private and public sectors
are working together to develop agriculture.
" In the midst of chaos and lawlessness in Mogadishu,
Somalis got a voice to express their views, thanks to
HornAfrik, the first independent television and radio
station in the country. One of its founders, Mohamed
Elmi tells UN Radio that giving the civilians of Mogadishu
a voice is electrifying.
RESENTER: This is United Nations Radio in New York.
Hello and welcome to UN and Africa, I'm Ransford Cline-Thomas.
PRESENTER:
In this edition, a UN study says millions of children
around the world are victims of violence and Africa
is no exception, as we hear from the Deputy Executive
Director of UNICEF, Rima Salah.
CLIP 1: RIMA SALEH
"Because of poverty, more and more, for example,
children are being trafficked. From where I was in West
Africa, we have the largest number of girls between
let's say ten and twelve who work at homes. And usually
they are mistreated, so this is a big problem."
(0'16")
PRESENTER:
Also in this programme, a television and radio station
is giving the people of Mogadishu a voice to express
their views.
CLIP 2:
"Once the community communicates among themselves,
it lets people really to talk person to person. It lets
people to exchange ideas. They exchange what is needed
in Mogadishu to be done today. What is bothering them,
who is killing them, who is supporting them." (0'15")
PRESENTER:
That was Mohamed Elmi, of HornAfrik, the first independent
television and radio station in Somalia. And also in
this programme, the Prime Minister of Mozambique talks
about efforts to fight poverty in that country.
So, stay tuned to UN and Africa.
*** SIG TUNE *** (Bring up briefly, dip and hold under
until first sentence.)
PRESENTER:
This week the United Nations observed the International
Day for the Elimination of Poverty. The commemoration
of this day came on the heels of the launch of the Secretary-General's
study on violence against children. The two issues may
not seem to be related but they are because poverty
forces children into situations which expose them to
violence. This point was made by the Deputy Executive
Director of the UN Children's Fund, Rima Saleh, with
whom I discussed the problem of violence against children.
Ms. Saleh once served as the Representative of UNICEF
in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso where she got to learn
about how poverty exposed children to violence on the
continent.
3'17"
SALAH: Of course this particular continent and of course
also from the consultations that we have, of course
we have the problem of poverty and because of poverty,
more and more, for example, children are being trafficked
for example even from Africa, from where I was in West
Africa, for example the problem of domestic workers,
the girls, we have the largest number of girls between
let's say ten and twelve who work at homes. And usually
they are mistreated, they are promised to go to school
but they don't go to school, so this is a big problem.
Of course also, for example, the traditional harmful
practices such as female genital mutilation, such as
early marriage, and of course, the violence is also
linked to HIV and AIDS. We know that violence and the
propagation of HIV and AIDS are linked together so we
have to do something about it.
C-THOMAS: And, of course, you do have the larger problem
of conflict in that part of the world.
SALAH: Yes.
C-THOMAS: How much do they contribute to the problem?
SALEH: Well, you know, the study was on violence against
children in countries that are not in situations of
war and conflict. However, we know that war and conflict
have an impact on the families. Because of what is happening
outside, this has an impact also on violence at home.
C-THOMAS: Now in some families parents believe that
it's normal routine to beat a child, it's a way of disciplining
them. What then is your view on this? You know, I am
reminded of the old phrase or the old saying 'spare
the rod and spoil the child'. Is that out of the door,
out of the window?
SALAH: Well Yes. Well because we are thinking of alternative
disciplinary measures that are important. According
to the Convention on the Rights of the Child a child
should not be abused, should not be beaten. So it's
very important to find alternative disciplinary measures,
in particular in schools. You have still maybe around,
from all the countries that we got the answers, we have
more than sixty countries where corporal punishment
is very strong in school also. And, of course, the study
is calling for a, to ban all corporal punishment.
C-THOMAS: Did you find that very prevalent in Africa,
corporal punishment?
SALAH: Of course, of course in school still.
C-THOMAS: I probably should have asked you this before,
is there a way, a specific way that you define what
violence is because I am thinking that not every small
infraction could be regarded as violence.
SALAH: Of course, of course. Violence is when the child
faces violence like beating but also sexual violence.
It's violence that really violates the rights of children.
C-THOMAS: Now what is UNICEF's role in all of this?
SALAH: Well UNICEF role is in the centre of our mandate.
Our mandate is based on the Convention on the Rights
of the Child. And we are already working with governments.
We have programmes to stop violence against children
whether it is in the countries that are in situation
of war or also in other countries. But I think what
this global study brought is to really break the silence
and it's a platform for us for advocacy. It's very very
important. However, we will continue working with governments
to set monitoring systems to really monitor the situation
of children and also government should be accountable
and we asking that a report should be given by 2010
on what they did. And most importantly it's not one
government, its all governments of the world.
C-THOMAS: It's all well and good, of course, bringing
the study to the attention of member states within the
corridors of the United Nations. What about taking it
outside the corridors of the United Nations to the countries
themselves?
SALAH: We did it already because people were involved.
Non-governmental organizations were involved. The young
people themselves were involved and governments themselves
were involved. I was at consultation where a government
said we don't have violence in our country and a young
person stood up and said 'no, we have violence in our
country '. I think this dialogue between young people,
between non-governmental organizations and also the
governments was wonderful and it's only the UN that
can do it, and that is why the role of the UN is very
important.
PRESENTER:
That was Rima Salah, the Deputy Executive Director
of UNICEF.
STING/JINGLE: UN AND AFRICA THEME
PRESENTER:
The United Nations this week observed World Food Day
under the theme
"Investing in Agriculture." The day put the
spotlight on the problem of
people who don't have enough to eat in a world which,
as the United
Nations Secretary has said, has the resources to make
hunger a thing of the
past. In Africa one country at least is making huge
efforts to fight the
scourge of hunger, as we hear from UN Radio's Bissera
Kostova.
2'40"
NARRATOR:
Seventy percent of the world's 850 million undernourished
people live in rural areas and
depend on agriculture for their survival. One of the
poorest countries in Africa,
Mozambique, has recently reduced poverty by 15% by investing
in agriculture.
Mozambique's Prime Minister Luisa Diogo says private
sector investment has been key
to the country's turnaround in the past decade.
CUT 1: LUISA DIOGO
The private sector is an engine for growth in Mozambique,
in reality, since the peace
agreement in several sectors - the industrial sectors,
the industrial sector, the agriculture
also. And now we are putting the private sector working
really hard also in infrastructures
and there we work together by private and public partnership.
NARRATOR:
Ms. Diogo says it all started with a government study.
CUT 2: LUISA DIOGO
In 1996 to 1997 we decided to do a survey about poverty
and the causes of poverty and
we analyzed the study and we concluded that Mozambique
had a level of poverty of 70 %
in the country.
NARRATOR:
In some rural areas the poverty level even reached
80%.
CUT 3: LUISA DIOGO
And we saw that one of the causes of poverty was the
issue of agriculture - the way how
we're doing agriculture at that time - and also the
issue of infrastructures, education,
health and other issues, and other issues, like the
issue of good governance also -
decentralization, community involvement and several
other issues.
NARRATOR:
Drawing on the study, the government came up with a
poverty reduction strategy that
emphasizes agricultural development, by organizing market
access, regulating private
enterprises and easing the land tenure regime. Ms. Diogo
says two main goals in the
agriculture sector were increasing the productivity
of small scale farmers and reducing
their vulnerability to natural disasters.
CUT 4: LUISA DIOGO
Here we have floods and drought. For the floods the
Agriculture and Food Organization of the United Nations
(FAO) is working with us to see how we manage the water,
and how we introduce crops that are really not vulnerable
as the crops that we use traditionally in the family
sector. So we are changing the crops in order to adapt
them to the circumstances of the places, but also to
the capacity of the family sector to organize these
types of crops. We are speaking about cassava, for example,
that's resistance to drought, we are speaking about
tomato and the onions and when floods are over they
can use those places to grow these types of crops.
NARRATOR:
Mozambique's Prime Minister Luisa Diogo says while
the country still relies on the UN for emergency assistance,
it is moving towards self-reliance even in disaster
recovery.
PRESENTER:
That report by UN Radio's Bissera Kostova.
STING/JINGLE: UN AND AFRICA THEME
PRESENTER:
Before Somalia's capital Mogadishu was taken over by
the Union of Islamic Courts, it was synonymous with
chaos, lawlessness, with young people brandishing AK
47's in the service of war lords. Civilians were virtual
hostages to these war lords and their militias who extorted
protection money. But Somalis of Mogadishu have not
been completely gagged thanks to HornAfrik, the first
independent television and radio station in the Somalia.
At the risk of being attacked by war lords who did not
like what the station was doing, HornAfrik has continued
to provide a unique voice for Mogadishu's civilians
to express their opinions about what is happening in
their city. UN Radio's Zenawit Melesse discusses the
role of HornAfrik with one of its founders, Mohamed
Elmi who says that giving people a platform to express
their views "electrifies".
3'13"
ELMI: It electrifies because when people say exactly
what is in their mind the hot issues that are burning
them; things that bother everybody else and also sometimes
the suggestions, the ideas that it can be solved and
how it can be tackled certain issues, people will love.
Everybody will say oh, this person spoke my mind, this
person said what I would have said. So once the community
communicates among themselves it lets people really
to talk person to person, it lets people to exchange
ideas and it lets them without fear from warlords or
from certain tribes or from anybody else without any
fear they exchange ideas, they exchange what's needed
in Mogadishu to be done today, what's bothering them,
who is killing them, who is supporting them, who is
doing good things, who are doing bad things. Our lines
were always jammed. It went up to a level that the three
big different telephone companies even sometime had
had time to feel that we jammed their lines in certain
parts of the city because everybody was trying to call
in.
ZEN: What kind of things were these people discussing
on the phone?
ELMI: They were discussing about the hardships that
they are having with the warlords, the hooligans who
were blocking the different roads, what's happening
in their neighbourhoods, how they can't get along with
their lives, how things should be changed and that the
warlords and others should stop what they are doing
and all that stuff.
ZEN: You were getting these warlords together in your
station to discuss the current problems and the future
hopes. What effect did it have on the people of Somalia?
ELMI: The effect it had was that it just exposed their
bad intention. It exposed their lack of clear policy,
their lack of understanding what the country needs.
And also exposed how war mongering that they were, it
exposed that they could not answer to the public even
among themselves that they could not relate to each
other what they were doing. So it was doing more harm
than they thought; they themselves communicating with
the public.
ZEN: Do you think that the people have learned a lot
from these discussions, for example what one warlord
stands for and did they get a chance to ask questions?
ELMI: Yeah they were asking a lot of questions and
most of the time they had no answers for the questions
of the public because the public was always right, they
were the once who were wrong and they were exposing
themselves really how bad they were, how horrible their
activities are and how they have no solution for them,
that they were putting the Somalia situation in a quagmire
of anarchy. That they themselves were doing nothing
but little cheap self interest.
ZEN: Do you think that will change? They will realise
that they can not rule the country with guns?
ELMI: Oh, they have realised long time ago actually
that they can not rule the country with guns. And that
is why they have been really already deposed and they
are already gone. The warlords are gone but still Somali
is not out of the woods, still trouble looms, still
there is no real viable government over there; the Islamic
courts took over. They are doing the best they could
do right now. So far they have made Mogadishu a safe
place. I think they have to do more as well; they have
to negotiate with the Transitional Federal Government.
There has to be a viable government in Somalia. There
has to be a good negotiation and reconciliation process
all over and hopefully, I see a bright future for Somalia.
ZEN: You just stated that there is no more warlords
in Somalia. You hope that there will be a peace process
somewhere. What is the next step for your station?
ELMI: Oh, there is a bright future for us. The warlords
are gone because the Islamic Council Union took over
actually from them, at least from Mogadishu and also
several other regions as well. Once there is a peaceful
situation, once there is viable government in Somalia,
Somalia will prosper. We will change gears then. We
are a private enterprise. Our private business will
boom.
That was Mohamed Elmi of HornAfrik, talking there to
UN Radio's Zenawit Melesse.
SIG TUNE ((Bring up briefly, dip and hold under)
And that's all for this edition of UN and Africa. Our
producer was Derrick Mbatha, Production Assistant was
Nyi Nyi Teza and our sound engineer was Pete Korusko.
And now from me Ransford Cline-Thomas, bye for now.
*** CLOSING MUSIC ***
(Bring music up and play till the end.)
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