Child's daily life in armed conflicts

WAKE UP... "OK, I'M STILL ALIVE"

Wake up, have breakfast, go to school with mum, eat all together, play games, do homework, play again, dine, sleep with a fairy tale... dream.

Oh no, they are children in armed conflicts. Already in the second step their daily life is very different.

The war digs indelible furrows in the life of a child.

He no longer goes to school; he does not play; the night he does not dreams, but nightmares.

Abdulmajid, 15 (Syria)

“The night before we fled, a plane attacked our neighborhood. It was very dark. We were all hiding. The noise was very loud so I stayed awake. We all stayed flat on the floor for hours.”

The next morning Abdulmajid’s parents and their 10 children fled their family home. His school was destroyed on the same day.

“We didn’t take anything. There was no time. On the road I saw houses in rubble and burned out cars. I saw massacres, people and children, killed without any reason.”

In this way, not far from us, is beginning 

the daily life of a child.

"We’ve had children say, ‘I don’t want to live anymore,’” said Anthony MacDonald, chief of child protection at the United Nations Children’s Fund in neighboring Lebanon.

Article 6 - Convention on the Rights of the Child:

"States Parties recognize that every child has the inherent right to life."

...ON THE STREETS

What did you collect when you were 12?
Cabbage Patch Dolls, Transformers, Beany Babies, Panini stickers?
Faheema collects rubbish.


Faheema, 12 (Afghanistan) 

She should be in school or play with her peers. 
Instead she spends her days walking the streets, going from bin to bin. 
"I'm looking for paper to use as firewood, so I can bake bread for my family. And for plastic bottles I can wash and sell to local shops."


Her days continue in solitude and abuses.

"I'm dressed in dirty rags and often violently abused by the street boys. There's no one I can turn to for help though."

In her days there is no room for lightheartedness.

Where is the Faheema's Right to have a childhood?

For many Western guys go to school is almost a duty, a nuisance. 

Instead, for many children in the world, like Faheema, going to school is a right that is constantly violated. Going to school, for them can be a dream, but the saddest thing is that these street children are often disillusioned.

War deletes dreams, hope... childhood.

NO EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN 

Essential elements for the life of a child often are taken for granted.
But for children involved in armed conflict, nothing is obvious.
What today there is ... maybe tomorrow there will not be.

The child's daily life in armed conflicts is characterized by insecurity: every day could be the last, for their families... and for them.