• A better understanding of children’s problems from findings of scientific
studies, including studies on children in difficult circumstances;
• Considerable strides in education as evidenced by public law mandating
free and compulsory primary education and free secondary education in
public schools, increases in gross and net enrolment reaching 91 percent
and 78.6 percent respectively, with the majority of Ethiopian children
receiving primary education in their mother tongue (25 languages).
• Free immunisation against childhood diseases with targets to reduce
the under five mortality rate from 123 to 85 per 1,000 live births, and the
infant mortality rate from 77 to 43 per 1,000 births;
• Establishment of the Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses
(IMCI) as a strategy to improve the quality of health care management
for children. This has yielded good results as seen in the expansion of
IMCI care to 83 health centres, and training for 322 health professionals
in less than 5 years.
• Targeting malaria by distributing 7 million medicated bed nets and
expanding rural health centres to over 10,000 in the last decade, with
children being the greatest beneficiaries;
• At the Federal level, establishing a special bench for juvenile cases and
children protection units within the Federal Police, thus creating a childfriendly law enforcement environment; and,
• Public grassroots-level awareness campaigns and training programmes
for law-enforcement personnel on the rights of children.
Outstanding Challenges
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Although the CSAR points to considerable improvements in the plight of children
over the past few years, it identifies the following challenges yet to be addressed.
• Children remain vulnerable to famine and other forms of economic
hardships brought about by drought and poor governance.
• Child labour remains a widespread practice despite constitutional
and other legal guarantees and Ethiopia’s ratification of relevant child
protection conventions. Prolonged tending of animals by children is
categorised as child exploitation in relevant international conventions.
This practice, one of the rites of passage in most pastoralist societies,
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