UNICEF On The Ground In Benghazi, As Libyan Children Face Increasing Threat

UNICEF on the ground in Benghazi, as Libyan children face increasing threat

BENGHAZI, Libya, 19 April 2011 – Before intense fighting engulfed the western Libyan city of Misrata some 50 days ago, Dava (not her real name), 5, would play dress-up and make beaded necklaces. In this, she was probably typical of most five year olds living in Misrata.

It happened to me as a Teenager

After reading one of my friend's note on facebook' it happened to me today' I can’t but remember one of such act of injustice dished out to me.... in the 90's.

Going back to the incidence ... that fate day, I followed my mother along with other family friends to a church crusade held on an open field. At the end of the crusade, we the children decided to get to the car and wait for our mothers to avoid one of us missing in the crowd of almost five thousand people. We located the car, and we leaned on the car, just almost immediately a police officer came and asked us not to lean on the car. Been outspoken, I respond that the car is ours and we are waiting for our parents to come so as to go home. On insisting, that we leave we took steps away from the car but this officer still asked us to move further into a darker place, then I told him we can’t because we are children and our parents asked us to avoid dark places and to stay beside the car at the end of the crusade. The next thing I recalled hearing next was a slap on my face after he tried using his stick on me, which told not to try.... and said am under arrest for trying to force the car open. At that I was taken to duty office then to be transferred to cell. Immediately, the news got to my mum but before her arrival people came asking me to beg and apologize... I asked them for what.....for stealing or standing for my right...... or to say thank you for being unjust to me. Soon after my mother came and being a senior civil servant in the state, she was immediately recognized by the officers who never knew she was my mother.... on interfering she called the commissioner of police to rescue her because her daughter has been wrong beaten by his officers. On hearing her, u should have seen the rate at which the officer and his other colleagues begged her even asking me too to pled on their behalf. Well, the officer was sent to the guard room for 3 days/nights.

After reading Nafisa's note, I ask myself what if I was an orphan or my mother was not educated and nobody knew her.... never went to school..... Have not eaten that day..... What would have happened to me...?

Such is the rate of injustice experienced by women and young girls daily especially from those who are meant to protect them.

After so many years, I now ask myself what I have done to help improve the situation. If am doing something, is it enough? Are there areas to improve or contribute to the process of ensuring that women and girls are free from all form of injustice and violence no matter its degree?

I think of that young girl in a rural community or an urban slum where access to education is a problem, whose parents want to give her out in early marriage. I think of that young girl that sells pure water by the roadside striving to feed and possibly help her family. Thoughts of how often she must have been harassed by uniform officers, what she must have done to save her from such acts and the pains she feels after such incidence fill my heart …

World of My dream

Down on the lane to the stream,
What a beautiful world, it’s is and I see,
I see tree flourishing with beauties to my eyes,
The sky blues,
Birds flying and singing,
Paths and roads loving to the heart,
Souls warming up to the beauty of the day,
Flowers smiling and Butterflies flying with joy,
Bees humming with sweetness of honey,
Streams flowing into the blossom of my abode,
Lambs and kids are joyfully jumping after their mother,
Ooh, the world I see where all are in harmony.

Ooh ah………………………………..
It has all been a dream,
Of a world I desire to live in,
Of a world I wish to attain,
Rather, am in a world,
Full of dead flora, no songs,
And no flying of birds,
The fields, paths and roads are deserted,
Kids and lambs are no more,
Even after few seconds of existence,
Mothers are wagging behind the walls,
Fathers are hard as stone,
I see rags…. Oh where are the royal clothes,
…. Are they torn?
My friend, tell me
What to do,
Please tell me, if my dreams can come alive,
And silently a voice came unto me,
Saying…….
I see a nation,
Where justice and peace shall reign,
If our leaders, our fathers and our mothers,
Shall give us a chance to build a nation,
Where all shall have access to mother earth and her fruits,
And sunlight of the land,