Global Call to Action against Poverty: Why I Wear White

As the Africa leg of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) campaign gears up, Hellen Tombo explains that the symbolic white bands that will be worn by campaigners are not indicative of surrender. Rather they are a demand to world leaders to cancel crippling debt burdens and end the unjust trade rules that are killing African children and youth.

“I am a symbol of many of the children and youth of Africa wearing white, crying out to be heard.”

The wearing of white bands is not significant of surrender. Instead, it represents the innocence of the children and youth who make up half of the population of the continent. Our white wristband defines our stance in solidarity with the Global Call to Action against Poverty.

Twenty years ago, a cry was heard. Soweto wailed for her slain children as they were mowed down by proponents of the apartheid regime as they peacefully marched along the road to demand their rights. Today the world mourns for the 30 000 plus children and youth that are killed everyday through denial of basic human rights.

Children and youth are at the core of GCAP. African countries are called upon to put in place statutory, developmental and governance interventions to address the plight of the children and the youth. As world leaders prepare to meet at the Gleneagles G8 summit in July, the voices of children and youth call for an increase in aid and debt cancellation. Answering this call is key to opening up space for children and youth to enjoy their basic human rights. The aim of wearing the whiteband and joining the GCAP community in this struggle is to create widespread mobilisation of youth and children to demand action and accountability from leaders in their commitments to eliminate poverty.

Poverty is a violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is further compounded by trade injustices that keep people poor. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other national and international statutes, protects the rights of all people to an adequate standard of living and well-being. These include education, food, clothing, housing, and medical care: rights whose achievement is undermined by inadequate commitment and policies that do not favor the implementation of globally-agreed upon declarations and statutes.

Today, millions of children and youth are trapped in abject poverty and lack access to basic education. Every day more than 800 million people, a high percentage being children and youth, go to bed with empty stomachs. HIV/AIDS kills more than 2 million people every year and adds to the league of orphans. Hunger is a daily norm rather than an exception: every year six million children die of malnutrition before their fifth birthday.

Who can tell the torments of the grave better than the dead? Who can fathom the discomfort that a poor girl has to live with month after month, year in year out due to a lack of sanitary pads. Unjust trade policies have destroyed the social infrastructure so much that more than school fees, it is the shame of using leaves or pieces of mattresses as sanitary towels that is locking the girl child out of the school system.

If you are a leader who has put food in the dustbin while 8 000 children and youth die of hunger in the last 24 hours, be the first to cast a stone. Cast it if you have not uttered the word ‘my right’ while six year olds are being married off, thousands consoling themselves with drugs due to unemployment. If these leaders cannot cast a stone, let them put on a white band and highlight the issues afflicting the children and the youth, such as:

- Children and young people whose school uniform doubles as their Sunday best because they cannot afford another set of clothes.
- Serial rapists who traumatise girls and young women.
- Children and young people who are exposed to the danger of rape by the long distances they have to cover in search of water or fire wood or forced to commercial sex by the need to feed siblings.
- Children and youth who are left out of government strategies and national plans.
- Children and youth who have to drop out of school to take care of their siblings when their parents die of HIV/Aids.
- Girls and young women who are married off as property.
- Children and youth who have to balance heavy home duties and school work on an empty stomach.
- Youth who have to console themselves with alcohol, ganging up and committing crime to get money to buy food and clothes, getting into drugs and roaming the streets due to lack of employment.

Children and the youth can be empowered to take charge of their lives. While some people may dislike and work against the conditions that would force them into accepting these challenges we want to ensure that children and the youth are mentored and provided for so that we are ready for any obstacle. Do this not for the children but with them.

Efforts to tackle poverty and deliver sustainable development, as pledged in the Millennium Declaration, have been grossly inadequate. Governments too often fail to address the needs of children and youth. Aid from rich countries is inadequate in both quality and quantity. Rich countries have yet to act on their repeated pledges to tackle unfair trade rules and practices: promises of debt cancellation have not been realized.

Debt servicing currently costs the world’s developing nations $39 billion annually. This, often times illegitimate debt, accounts for the lack of funding for the most basic healthcare, education, access to clean water, food, shelter etc. Behind the cold statistics of failed promises and empty rhetoric are lives of real children and youth: millions of children and youth abandoned; without basic health care, sleeping on the pavements in our cities. These children and young people must be cared for, taken in and treated as children.

Poverty is a very unnatural and abnormal state. It is man made and can be eradicated and overcome by the actions of human beings. Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity; it is the protection of a fundamental human right to dignity and a decent life. We do not wear white to surrender to poverty. We display our wristbands to mark our solidarity in the calling of others to action against poverty. It is a reminder to the G8 leaders and world leaders in the UN summit and WTO that with greatness comes responsibility: 2005 is the time to demand they take responsibility.

Naturally trade can create prosperity for Africa as it has in other regions. However, our actions have designed the same trade to deny many children the right to live to see their fifth birthday. We must address the widening gap between the rich and the poor if we aim to safeguard the security of our children and youth for today and tomorrow. Trade must be facilitated in such a way that it builds a future asset base for all children and youth irrespective of their culture, race, sex or creed. All children and youth worldwide must be born free: free from debt and free from any form of deprivation. Somebody must answer the cries of the children and youth.

I am crying as one of the millions of African children and youth. Debt is killing us, trade injustices are killings us, poverty is killing us, empty promises are killing us…

My call to our African and world leaders is:

We need strategies, interventions and real programs to serve us today and for the future of Africa and the world…

African leaders, you have had your priorities wrong. It is not too late to change. Let the children and youth be your priority and you will save the world…

World leaders, cancel the debt – it is killing us. We demand trade justice and better and more aid. We demand that world leaders keep their promises in achieving the MDGs.

* Hellen Tombo is executive director of the Kenya Youth Education and Community Development Programme (KYCEP).

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