On the field
Until end of january my schedule will be 3 days in WAO Afrique transit centre, and 2 days in the offices. I've started work on wednesday at the transit centre, a place where young girls victims of violence or abuses stay until they can reintegrate home or placed in foster homes. The youngest girl at the centre is 8 years old. She is here because while she was placed as a servant with relatives, she stole an egg because she was hungry. Her employer burned the tip of her 10 fingers.
I've spent these first few days getting familial with the girls at the centre and their stories(15 at the moment but they can accomodate up to 32), participating to a few staff meetings, observing the day to day running of the place. I was worried I'd get bored since the first two days were fqirly quiet, but friday afternoon, I've participated to my first rescue mission. A case of child abuse was reported to the centre, and we went to the child protection agency to collect a girl who had been severly beaten by her uncle. We went back to the centre we logged her story in the files, the nurse checked her and then we were out to the girl's house to get some clothes and school stuff. There was confrontation with the family who tried to follow our car to the centres location but thanks to the chaotic traffic in Lomé lost our trail.
I wasn't all that familiar with the area of child abuse and here I got to dive straight into it. Very distressing stories, and many of them. Here the fight for the right of children is nowhere as advanced as in Europe and ther US, but then again neither are economical and political structures and if there one thing I have learned in the past few days, it is that the two issues are intertwined. It is economic desperation that sees parents sending to town 8 years old to work as domestic servants. It is the same desperation that drives an educated man to beat his daughter with a heavy pestle (used to ground maize or pound yam) because she's a "witch" and caused him to lose his job and the means to feed his family.
Much more to come on this topic, my rantings on NGOs, the state of Togo today but i'm in a cybercafe and running out of time.
I've spent these first few days getting familial with the girls at the centre and their stories(15 at the moment but they can accomodate up to 32), participating to a few staff meetings, observing the day to day running of the place. I was worried I'd get bored since the first two days were fqirly quiet, but friday afternoon, I've participated to my first rescue mission. A case of child abuse was reported to the centre, and we went to the child protection agency to collect a girl who had been severly beaten by her uncle. We went back to the centre we logged her story in the files, the nurse checked her and then we were out to the girl's house to get some clothes and school stuff. There was confrontation with the family who tried to follow our car to the centres location but thanks to the chaotic traffic in Lomé lost our trail.
I wasn't all that familiar with the area of child abuse and here I got to dive straight into it. Very distressing stories, and many of them. Here the fight for the right of children is nowhere as advanced as in Europe and ther US, but then again neither are economical and political structures and if there one thing I have learned in the past few days, it is that the two issues are intertwined. It is economic desperation that sees parents sending to town 8 years old to work as domestic servants. It is the same desperation that drives an educated man to beat his daughter with a heavy pestle (used to ground maize or pound yam) because she's a "witch" and caused him to lose his job and the means to feed his family.
Much more to come on this topic, my rantings on NGOs, the state of Togo today but i'm in a cybercafe and running out of time.
posted by Kékéli at 19:02
2 Comments:
"I wasn't all that familiar with the area of child abuse and here I got to dive straight into it"
remember Fina? I do, and perhaps you, too
I wrote " not all that familiar" and not totally unaware. I remember Fina, but I also confess that over the past 6 odd years I havn't been back domestic abuse hasn't been on the top of my list of priorities. More to the point, now I don't have to watch helpless like the way we use to. now I am trying to do something about it.
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