Mapping Children on the Move within Africa “I was living near Harar with my family. My father went crazy and began beating my mother every day. We were very poor and two of my siblings died. I was the oldest one, so I started helping out: I cooked, planted crops in our garden, and looked after the youngest ones. My father started beating me as well. We couldn’t live with him anymore. One night we left and went to Jijiga. When we arrived, I helped my mother settle. Then I immediately left for Djibouti to look for a job. With some money left I bought the tools and started working (…) Now I do a lot of jobs, I clean cars and shoes in Menelik Square, and I do commissions for people living there.… I got to know some people who give me something to do, take away the garbage or clean their houses. They give me food or let me sleep inside sometimes. (…) I’m saving a lot to send back to my family.” Elias, 15, Ethiopian Although the prevalence of the incidence as well as the acceptance of domestic violence in Africa declined by 10 percent between the ‘first (2000-6) and second half (2007-2013) of the 2000s’ the tacit acceptance of domestic violence in Africa is ‘exceptionally high’ at 51 per cent.290 According to a World Bank Report, Poverty Rising in Africa, tolerance of domestic violence in Africa is still twice as high as in the rest of the developing world.291 Attitudes towards domestic violence also point to the prevailing behaviour, social norms and disposition generally towards conflict.292 These structural drivers of violence when combined with institutional drivers of violence, like failure to enforce legal structures and ineffective child protection systems, reinforce children’s vulnerabilities and susceptibility to violence.293 This provides a reason for children to migrate in search of a conducive environment to live. 3.2.3.5 Education Education is equally one of the main factors that contribute to movement of children. According to the ILO, through movement, many children aspire for better chances to attend school.294 The increasing desire to obtain an education and the rising levels of literacy schooling across the African continent has made education a ‘driving force of mobility and migration.’295 Many families also hope that migration will avail their children opportunities to improve their human capital through obtaining education and skills development.296 Education is key to eradication of poverty. However, ILO asserts that the possibility that children on the move find an opportunity to study depends on the nature of the destination.297 For instance, a research conducted on migrant children few years back in South Africa established that 65 per cent of unaccompanied minors were not enrolled in school although there was variation depending on location.298 The study indicated that children residing in Johannesburg were likely to be enrolled in school (96 per cent) in comparison to those living in the border areas (6 per cent).299 This gives a glimpse into multiple barriers that migrant children as well as refugee children face in regard to starting and continuing their education.300 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 L Christiaensen, ‘Domestic Violence and Poverty in Africa: When the Husband’s Beating Stick is Like Butter’ <http://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/domestic-violence-and-poverty-in-africa-when-thehusbands-beating-stick-is-like-butter> (accessed 29 March 2018). World Bank, Poverty in a Rising Africa (2016). Christiaensen, (n 293 above). Maternowska (n 284 above). ILO, ‘Migration and child labour: Exploring child migrant vulnerabilities and those of children left-behind’ Working paper (2010) p 7. Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Draft Report on the Drivers of Migration in Africa (2017) p 9. ILO, ‘Migration and child labour: Exploring child migrant vulnerabilities and those of children left-behind’ Working paper (2010) p 7. As above. Save the Children UK: Children Crossing Borders. Report on Unaccompanied Minors to South Africa, p.5, London, 2007. As above. UNICEF, Uprooted: The Growing Crisis for Refugee and Migrant Children, September 2016 p 55. 57