Refugees and Displaced People in Africa

The term "displaced people" when speaking of Africa refers to the people who have left or fled their homes to escape armed conflict and violence. The refugee's of Africa are those people who have crossed an international border. Recently, Africa has been known for its large scale refugee movements, its international population displacements and mass repatriation movements. Africans only constitute about 12 percent of the global population, and with the worlds 11.5 million refugees, 28 percent of them and 50 percent of the worlds 20 million displaced persons can be found in Africa. There are 25 African states with refugee populations of about 10,000, with 11 of those populations holding populations of 100,000 or more. In 1994, 47 percent of the refugees that were recorded by the UNHCR were found in Africa. By the time of 1998, refugee numbers dropped significantly to 28 percent, this falling from 6.75 million refugees in 1994 to 3.2 million by 1998.
Refugee Camps & Threats:
The refugee camps all through the continent of Africa are very dangerous and unsanitary. Refugee populated areas could be a target for military attacks which can be in the form of arial bombing, but more likely land based attack. In the 1970's and 80's, there were several attacks and raids launched by South Africa's armed forces, which were targetted towards the refugees in the front line states. Moving on to the 1990s, the problem became widespread and global with such occurances like attacks on Sudanese refugee settlements in Northern Uganda, and the assaults on the Rwandan camps in Eastern Zaire during the end of 1996.
Other than military threats, refugee camps are also targetted for non-military threats, instead involving different types of extreme violence, intimidation and criminal activity. Other threats could include rape and armed robbery.
Here you will find the UNHCR (The UN Refugee Agency) convention on the aspects of refugee issues in Africa.
The UNHCR show clearly in this convention statement that they want to improve the lives of the refugees in Africa, even knowing that they may have been the cause of conflict in the past. The thing that I love the most about the UN is that they try to look past the bad and find the good in what they can do to make the world a better place. One of my favourite statements from this convention is
" Bearing in mind that the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have affirmed the principle that human beings shall enjoy fundamental rights and freedoms without discrimination. "
It is good to point out that although the refugees live in some of the poorest conditions,and there has been a great deal of conflict all through the continent because of them, that you should not judge before you know. That some refugees are trying to find the peace and be in a better, safer place than they were before. If there is some way that we can eliminate conflict while making the refugees even a little at peace, in good conditions and completely safe that would be ideal, but we know these things take time. There will always be reasons in Africa to flee, there are too many countries and conflicts to deny that, but the refugees atleast deserve better camps and places to make their home while they can.

A refugee camp in Chad, Africa.

In this video you can see the conditions in which most of the refugees live, and the troubles they may have.

AIDS Orphans in South Africa

According to a study, three million boys and girls in South Africa from birth to the age of eighteen have been orphaned. Since 2005, the number of orphans has risen 4.9 percent. A startling 1.9 million children lost their fathers,  and 713,000 lost their mothers. Approximately 419,000 children were even left without both parents. The affects on health, either physically or mentally, on children who have been orphaned are extreme. In many cases, the child's physical health is compromised, with a weak immune system and horrible health status due to the emotional trauma they are going through and much more. When I stumbled upon this issue in Africa and caught my attention greatly. When people think of global issues, you think more about environmental issues, buisness issues, government issues and things along those lines, but never whether a child is left without their parent. It might not seem like a great issue to bring up, but it is, especially since it is happening at such a high level in Africa. 1 in 5 children in South Africa's rural areas live with only one parent, or no parents at all. The rural areas are said to be the areas with the highest number of orphans.

You may be wondering why so many children are left without parents. Well, living in Africa there is a widespread issue of HIV/AIDS. In 2008, 29 percent of South African women were HIV positive during their pregnancy.  Even though the HSRC found that 97 percent of pregnant women with AIDS had accessed care pregnancy, some even recieving care more than five times during the pregnancy, the death rate of these women is still extremely high. AIDS is non cureable, but can be slowed down and helped slowly with the right treatment, of course, Africa is the poorest continent so you can not expect that it would have the best healthcare for those patients.  In 2008 a survey was taken, with the results being that one in five children under the age of 2 were hospitalized for approximately 6.8 days a year, and less than 70 percent of children were immunized against ANY childhood diseases. Health care for your child no matter what should provide immunizations as it is well known that children can develop these diseases much quicker than adults. The main goal here is to improve health care in Africa so that these children and their parents can live their life with as little disease as possible, and to avoid death.
The United Nations defines an orphan as " a child who has lost one or both parents ".  On a global scale, about 16 million children that are under the age of 18 have become orphaned due to AIDS. 14.8 million of these children are from Sub-Saharan Africa. On the webpage that I last hyperlinked, you will see that there is a large chart for percentages and numbers of orphans due to AIDS for many different countries in Africa. This chart is truly moving to imagine how many children are left without their parents due to an uncureable disease; It is extremely heartbreaking. The loss of a parent or parents can have a huge impact on a child. If they were previously living with their parents at a young age before becoming orphaned, they will usually experience neglect, emotional unstability and the basic needs that their parent would give them, because their parent would simply not have the energy or strength to do so. Children can then in the future develop serious anxiety problems, extreme stress, depression and more. Although this may not seem like a huge issue, it is. Everyone always states how " children are the future ", well, they are. When we finally find a cure for this and are able to start to put back together the continent of Africa, it would be great if these children were still alive and well, physically and mentally.

African Orphans

Take time to look at the every day life of an AIDS orphan here

Clean Water Supply in Africa

Clean water supply in any country is often overlooked. We use water more than almost everything, for every day neccessities to survive. Most times, in our society, people are scared to have just the littlest bit of contamination in their water, but think about the people in Africa. There is a large threat to Africa's lakes, rivers and wetlands due to things like chemical run-off, pesticide use, and more. The largest reason for the unclean water supply is quite obviously,  human activity. In every country there are agencies responsible for certain environmental factors like agriculture and forestry, but surprisingly in most countries there are not agencies for wetlands management. Even if there was a try at creating a cleaner and safer water system, Africa shares their freshwater ecosystems with many nations, so if there is a coordination difficulty with a nation, it will be a tough process to try and create a plan. Women in Africa walk miles and miles, more than once a day just to get a bucket of water, which they will then have to use for the majority of their daily tasks. They use their water for most of the same reasons we do, but, theirs is brown, unsanitary and not very healthy. They don't have a choice, though, they slave over chores and walk in ridiculous temperatures just to get one bucket.

In recent years, clean water supply has become a more frequent and looked at issue, with more plans being made towards creating a better environment for all of Africa. The UN African Renewal is a plan in which the UN has a goal to help Africa create a universal clean water supply.  African leaders have been showing their commitement to achieving safe, clean water through their development of the New Partnership of Africa's Development (NEPAD), a recent blueprint. They have also been giving great support to the Millennium Development Goals ( MGD's ), adopted by the world leaders in the year 2000. The seventh Millennium Development Goal is to cut down, by half, the number of people without access to safe drinking water and sanitation, by the year 2015. So far, the number of people in Sub-Saharan Africa was reduced approximately 52 percent to 44 percent between the years 1990 and 2004. The main target percentage for this goal is 26 percent, which will definitely take a long time to accomplish.

Populations with access to clean water-2004 statistics-Sub-Saharan with the lowest percentage.

The UN Development Programme ( UNDP ), estimates that the recent budget in Sub-Saharan Africa for spending in water and sanitation sectors is around 800 million dollars a year. This budget needs to be increased, and can be increased in the following ways: through cost recovery- charging users for water, and financial mobilization.

UNICEF has many statistics on water supply for several countries of Africa. As I checked Ethiopia, I found that it has a low level of water and sanitation coverage and a low level of hygiene awareness, which creates many health problems. In Ethiopia 80 percent of communicable diseases are the result of poor water and sanitation. In Haiti, some shocking information shows that in large cities and rural areas, the environment is full of filthy water, filthy waste and close to complete absense of waste drainage. In urban areas, out of those who are lucky enough to have access to water, only 10 percent have direct access, while 25.6 percent must have waste pick up services. One of the saddest statistics is that there are only 33 percent of schools that have access to water, and even though they have access it is not safe for drinking. The other 67 percent of schools are left with latrines which are majority unuseable or in poor condition.
Hopefully this information shows how serious water damage is in Africa, and even though the majority of us can't make it over there to help, we can stop polluting our own water as a start. Water is one of the main neccessities we need to live, and we have a pretty great water system compared to other countries, as you now know.

To view more on the issues of water supply in Africa, click here .

Sub-Saharan Africa:Child Labour

In this blog I will be adressing the issue of child labour. Child labour happens in many countries around the world, with many of us oblivious to what is really going on. While many people have their own opinion and definition on child labour, the Union Aid Abroad website, I found, had the best overall definition: " Children under fifteen years of age are made to do work that is physically or mentally harmful, and interupts their education and social development. "
In Sub-Saharan Africa, almost half of the population is children. A paper on this issue states that, out of all of the African regions, Sub-Saharan Africa has one of the highest child labour rates. The International Labour Organization, or ILO, shows shocking statistics that 41% of Sub-Saharan children that are under the age of 14 are not getting an education, and even worse, around 80 million are working! The statistics shown here are approximately twice the Asian rate.
So why does child labour occur? Child labour can occur for many different reasons, one of the largest being poverty. Seeing as Africa is the poorest continent, it has a higher rate of child labour than you would expect to see in any other continent. The choice for child labour is often made by the children's family members, simply because it is one of their last resorts to make any money at all. Although poverty is sometimes used as a reason for child labour, it is not the only one. Families would hope that their child would make them money of course, being in the poor conditions they are in, but sadly most child labour is also done without pay, in their own household.  Yes, some people may believe that putting a child to work is a good idea because it will increase the childs intelligence of life and will make them mature faster, but they are obviously not thinking about, or even have an idea about the child labour that we are discussing here. The child labour we are discussing is specifically towards the children that are being made to work at too young of an age, which will in the future reduce their ability to succeed. They will not get the education they need, because instead they are slaving and working every day, where if they got the chance to go get an education they could make something of themselves and create stability for their family and for their future.

The Child Labor Public Education Project sheds light on the laws of Child Labour. There are laws in place against this, but even though those laws are placed, they are often not followed. Some laws aren't even fully against the labor, allowing it to still take place as long as it is in certain sectors and is involving agriculture or domestic work. The countries that do have strong labour laws also do not succeed well as they are under-staffed, under-funded and more.

graph showing child labour percentages in Sub-Saharan Africa

There is not much that we can do from where we are to stop child labour. I am sure even if we did manage to stop it somewhere, it will never be stopped completely. Children live their life day to day working and sweating to the bone, and they don't know anything else other than what they've been exposed to. If they got the chance to go to a school, and get an education even if it would take a very long time for them to become successful, I'm sure we couldn't even imagine the happiness in their eyes.

a poor child under labour trying to carry bricks

countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa region

In this video you will see how we take what we have in this century for granted. We don't look beyond the product to think about where it was made, who made it, and how lucky we have it. This video is an eye opener to us all, I'm sure.