Monrovia — The Executive Director of the Foundation for Human Rights Defense (FOHRD) International Liberia Office has told the nation that conflict can be prevented when young people are treated with dignity and respect for their human rights.
Speaking at the dedication of his country office new and own facilities along the Edward Binyan Kesselly Military Barracks-Monrovia highway in Gbengbah Town last Tuesday, Mr. Tee Torbor Wonokay told Liberians that actions by adults mostly against young people, led to the civil war. “From my own personal experience, I have come to realized that some of the things that led to the civil conflict in this country and even things that happened while the conflict went on, could have been prevented had young people been treated well,” he stated.
He further told his audience, predominantly young children in high school and other grade levels, that international norms and principles of democracy demand that children are treated with certain values.
“Just because you are young doesn’t mean you are any less in value. But in this country, we see young people when it is time to be in the classroom, they are out there in the Redlight Market, ELWA Market, etc, selling cold water.”
According to him, sometime the children, after selling the whole day, only bring home a 100 Liberian dollar (US$0.50); adding: “For this purpose that child has missed out on education.”
He reminded Liberia’s children facing such harsh conditions that inasmuch as some of their parents or guardians maybe trying to make ends meet to take care of them, it is not their (children’s) faults that Liberia is this way and that it is incumbent on the state to make better provisions for their upbringing.
Adding: “You should not grow up in community that has no clean drinking water, you don’t have no education and other basic things pertaining to the human family. And when you grow up and you are 15 or 20 and you are so hungry and desperate because you can’t afford, then they call you ‘zogos’ or ‘criminals’.”