Universal Children’s Day was marked on Friday, 20 November. In September this year, the UN included a target to end violence against children in the Sustainable Development Goals, explicitly linking, for the first time, a violence-free society for children to economic growth.

Pierre Nkurunziza is neither the first nor the only head of state in Africa’s Great Lakes region to seek another term of office against provisions of the constitution. Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni orchestrated the removal of term limits from the constitution altogether. DR Congo and Rwanda’s presidents both want an extension of their regimes.