Creating Awareness Amongst  Mareb Children about Weapons [Archives:2000/22/Last Page]

By Hassan Al-Zaidi
We were glad to hear about Children’s Parliament, aimed at creating awareness about democratic values among children. It also aimed at creating and strengthening children’s value systems to cope with the new technology and development in future.
However, these activities are organized in the capital and some other major cities. The goals of this innovative parliament will not be successful unless it covers all governorates.
In so far as the Children’s Parliament aims at creating awareness among children in our country, it works towards making them conscious about their rights. Now, who is responsible for spreading awareness among children in Mareb and other rural areas? For example, children in Mareb suffer from social, economic, educational and health problems. They neither have schools nor teachers. They suffer from epidemic diseases, and live in bad environment. This adversely affects the future of those children.
The continuing tribal conflicts have had their negative impact upon our children. For instance, as pupils at the primary stage we were very much affected by tribal disputes and battles taking place in our area. We were either to be forced to leave the only school located inside the area of the tribe engaged in conflict with our tribe or to form rival groups imitating the fighting that our adults were involved in, sometimes even inside the school building. Unfortunately, this sad problem is still persisting among children in Mareb.
As a result, children are led to believe that carrying weapons is part of their tradition and part of their personality. They start carrying weapons at the age of eight-years as a symbol of prestige and bravery. Regarding girls, they leave schools at an early time to graze animals. There are few families, however, that allow their daughters to complete their studies, despite the constraints of tradition and customs.
Students walk for long distances to reach school. They walk distance to and from school in the scorching heat of sun. They spend the second half of the day in farms or grazing animals until the evening. They revise and do their homework in lantern light in the evenings or listen to tales narrated by their grandmothers. This is the reality of children in Mareb. There is an urgent need to help those children out of the mess they are in. Ninety five percent of children in Mareb are deprived from watching children’s programs on TV because there is no electricity nor are there TVs. It is of course a positive step to organize Children’s Parliament, but if there is a political will, this facility must be extended to other areas as well, especially to rural areas to help all Yemeni children. The state and authorities should have the will to find solutions for children’s problems. There must also be associations to defend children’s rights all over the country. The fact is that the state wants to launch propaganda about freedom and democracy in Yemen to satisfy some of the international organizations, with a view to getting financial aid and achieving personal interests. In the circumstance, we can not blame people of Mareb for the current stalemate where the state does not pay them adequate attention.
 


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