Children from countries in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) have called upon their leaders to remove various barriers that hinder them towards realising the future that they deserve.

The children sounded the plea on the sidelines of the just ended 41st Ordinary Summit of SADC Heads of State and Government that Malawi hosted in Lilongwe.

Speaking during the Child Rights event organised by the Joining Forces in Lilongwe, Speaker for Mwanza Children’s Parliament Victoria Ganamba said the heads of State need to up their efforts in creating a conducive environment that secure their rights and violence against them.

The 16 year-old Victoria added that the leaders need to come in and address challenges in sectors like education and health.

“The most important thing is that we are asking for their help, we need them now so that they should address all those barriers which we are facing so that at the end of the day we should also benefit from their discussions and the resources that can be pumped in.

“There are a number of barriers, for example in the education sector we are having a little number of schools and we also don’t have special needs teachers, this needs to be looked into too,” said Victoria.

The children have also called upon SADC to embrace policy that address the plight of child refugees citing that child refugees in the region have poor access to education and other social services, are at a greater risk of malnutrition, face greater risks to their safety and well-being.

Concurring with Victoria, Senior Technical Advisor on Policy, Advocacy and Government Relations at Save the Children John Chipeta said children`s concerns need to be taken seriously if the 2050 SADC aspirations are to be achieved.

“We are hoping that the Heads of State are going to take action because if we are aspiring that by 2050 we need to be a SADC that is developed and we are living the children behind, I think it will be difficult to achieve such aspirations,” said Chipeta.

The Joining Forces, which is a global alliance of six international Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) with four active in Malawi, works with children to secure their rights and end violence against them.

The NGOs operating in Malawi under the alliance include Save the Children, Plan International, World Vision and SOS Children’s Villages Malawi.

The children added that SADC needs to abolish child trafficking, child abuse and violation of children’s rights including the right to education by putting strong measures in place to put to an end these child rights violations.