African Child Day Commemorated In Torit

This article was last updated on May 25, 2022

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Different speakers affirmed that the Day is commemorated yearly on June 16th by African Union member states and its partners saying it the annual occasion acknowledges plights children from around the African nations.

In the just concluded hectic event held at Torit Freedom Square, children from a number of primary schools came out voicing their concerns through poems and drama during the occasion as they expressed their afflictions.

The Day has been organized by the State Ministry of Culture, Social Development, Youth and Sports in collaboration with Partners notably Plan International, UNICEF, Torit UNMISS, among others, officials have said.

The State Deputy Governor’s Jerome Gama Surur who was the guest speaker of the concluded historic event concurred with all the preceded speakers that the commemoration is to remember the 1976 uprising in Soweto of South Africa exactly on June 16, 1976, when a protest by thousand of unarmed black school children against apartheid inspired education was repressed brutally and deadly by security forces.

Celebrated on June 16 every year ever since 1991, when it was first initiated by the Organization of African Unity, the Day is dedicated to those who participated in the Soweto Uprising in 1976 on that day.

Present at the Celebration played a role in the occasion was the State Coordinator of United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) in Eastern Equatoria, Ms. Hiroko Hirahara Mosko clarified before the crowd that the Day was marked to raise awareness of the continuing need for improvement of the education provided to African children.

Also speaking on behalf of his Ministry was the State Education Minister’s Hon. Michale Lopuke Lotyam who alongside the Director for Child Welfare in the State Ministry of Culture, Social Development, Youth and Sports Mrs. Jane Gama SUrur publicly announced he was born on 16 June 1976 therefore he dedicated his thoughts to it.

In Soweto, South Africa, on June 16, 1976, about ten thousand black school children marched in a column more than half a mile long, protesting the poor quality of their education and demanding their right to be taught in their own language.

Hundreds of young students were shot, the most famous of which being Hector Peterson.

More than a hundred people were killed in the protests of the following two weeks, and more than a thousand were injured.

Present was the Torit Commissioner’s Germany Charles Ojok who urged all the stakeholders to support the children’s education

In South Sudan 7.3% of girls in South Sudan are married before they reach 15 and 42.2% between the ages of 15 and 18. This is contributing to the large numbers of girls who are dropping out of primary school before the end of the eight-year cycle; while around 37% of girls enrol in primary school, only around 7% complete the curriculum and only 2% go on to enrol in secondary school.