Jinja education officer pleads for boys

Oct 08, 2009

JINJA municipal principal education officer, Jonathan Kamwana, has urged child rights activists to not only focus on the girl-child but also consider the boys.

JINJA municipal principal education officer, Jonathan Kamwana, has urged child rights activists to not only focus on the girl-child but also consider the boys.

He said research had shown that more boys than girls were being exploited in urban areas. He told The New Vision on Tuesday that the number of vulnerable street boys in Jinja town was much higher than that of girls.

, adding that stakeholders should strive to protect all children irrespective of their sex. Kamwana said there was need for action to save young boys involved in sugarcane cutting and fishing in certain communities.

Meanwhile the Kakira Town Council L.C 3 chairman John Kamau recently attributed the escalating insecurity and cases of robberies in the area to poverty and poor attitude of residents to work.

“There is increased theft and robberies especially in Mawoito parish. Youth break into people’s houses, waylay women and steal money or property and these are our own children,” he said

Kamau narrated that he had received reports of victims who had fallen victim to the racket, adding that many of them were beaten by the attackers on failure to produce money.

“A society with high levels of poverty is a dangerous one. It has evils like prostitution, high dropout rates and crime,” he noted

Kamau urged residents to utilize the available opportunity of the Universal Primary Education (UPE) and Universal Secondary Education (USE) to educate children but regretted that some had misunderstood the government’s development programmes.

“Unfortunately, some people now don’t want to work, reasoning that the government has given them free things, forgetting that they have roles to play as parents,” he said

He asked residents to embrace the National Agricultural Advisory Services (NAADS) and the prosperity for all (Bonna Bagaggawale) programmes.

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