To mark the Day of the African Child, held this year under the theme “30 years after the adoption of the Charter (ACRWR): Accelerate the implementation of Agenda 2040 for an Africa fit for children”, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) calls for nationwide policies and efforts of recovery and rehabilitation of post-conflict areas to be child-centred. As noted in the document, the main objective of the Agenda “is to restore the dignity of the African child through assessments of the achievements and challenges faced towards the effective implementation of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child”, which Ethiopia ratified in 1990. Among the goals detailed in the Agenda, figures Aspiration 9 which provides that “every child is free from the impact of armed conflicts and other disasters or emergency situations.”
At national level, United Nations (UN) studies estimate that among 23.2 million people in Ethiopia in need of humanitarian assistance, 12.5 million are children. Of the 1.82 million persons who are internally displaced (IDPs) primarily due to conflict, around 58% are less than 18 years old, of whom 21,659 are unaccompanied. EHRC monitoring of IDP shelters also indicates that the majority of people living in these shelters are women and children.