UNICEF begins sensitisation on healthcare, others in Anambra

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UNICEF begins sensitisation on healthcare, others in Anambra

The United Nations Children’s Fund has identified economic hardship as one of the adverse effects of flooding and called for awareness to guard against the outbreak of diseases.

Speaking at the launch of a sensitisation exercise organised in collaboration with the Anambra State Social Mobilisation and Technical Committee, the Project Desk Officer, Mrs Grace Onwukwe, on Saturday said the organisation was also concerned about the well-being of children affected by flooding.

She said, “One of the adverse post-flooding effects, apart from disease outbreaks, is economic hardship. UNICEF is concerned with children’s protection. Whenever there is flooding, people affected are usually quartered in government-reserved internally displaced persons camps.

“There, you may see a lot of people from various families and different backgrounds, so parents need to be careful and watchful over their children.

“Also, post-flooding hardship can push parents into dispatching their children to become housemaids while others turn their children into hawkers. They make money from them without caring about their future or what these children encounter at the hands of their masters or mistresses.

“Sometimes, these children are not sent to school but are subjected to child labour, child abuse, all forms of inhuman treatment in the name of punishment and molestation in the hands of paedophiles.”

Also speaking, the UNICEF facilitator, Mrs Chinese George-Ileka, urged IDPs to shun indecent dressing as a way to prevent sexual violence.