Thousands of school children gathered to commemorate the African Child Day. |16th June 2022 |Credit:Doru Peninah/Eye Radio

The Ministry of Gender, Child, and Social Welfare said its related institutions in the states are struggling to deliver on their mandates to protect children due to financial challenges.

The Ministry’s Director for Child Welfare, Celina Grace Peter made the statement during the commemoration of the African Child Day in Juba on Thursday.

Grace Peter said the state ministries of gender, child and social welfare are supposed to implement policies to protect the rights of children at the grass roots level.

“I’m sorry to say that the ministry of gender is suffering in this area, there is no funding properly designated, so I want to retreat that there should be commitments, real commitment in terms of upholding the rights of this children by funding the solution to issues that affect them,” Grace said.

South Sudan has the world’s highest proportion of out-of-school children, with around 72 percent, (roughly about 2.2 million) primary-aged children are out of school, according to UNICEF.

The UN agency also states that children in South Sudan face many challenges, and are often victims of conflict and violence. 

Girls are vulnerable to sexual abuse and boys risk recruitment and use by armed forces and armed groups from a very young age, UNICEF noted in a report.

Meanwhile, the government official said the states ministries are unable to execute their duties due to lack of funding.

“We cannot begin to think that we can treat a tree from the leaves, we must go down to the grassroots level and this is exactly the reason why even the ministries at the state level are not able to do what they can.”

Grace stated that the national Ministry of Gender has put in place policies and frameworks that are not enforced at the grassroots level.

“What we do at our standard at the national level is to put this policies and frame work in place and yet the implementation is supposed to be taking place on the ground at the grassroots,

“And this where there is a lot of challenges because the state ministries at the grass roots are not getting the funding, let alone us at the national level,” she said.

South Sudan commemorated the Day of the African Child, an annual event to recall the 1976 Soweto uprising in South Africa.

On June 16th, 1971 more than 20,000 South African students in the town of Soweto took to the streets, demanding to be taught in their indigenous language.

Armed police officers of the former Apartheid regime  responded by opening fire and killing hundreds of protesters.

The day was then declared as a public holiday in South Africa, also referred to as International Day of the African Child throughout the world.

The day focuses attention on the barriers African children face in order to receive a quality education.