My name is Adeke Sumin; I am 14 years old in P.7 at Barlyech Primary School. I am a member of Pamo Young Stars Children’s Club and I am the speaker of the club.
As a speaker, I lead all meetings whenever we meet. I welcome members and tell them the agenda of the day. During the meetings, we discuss children’s rights and forms of child abuse among others. Some of the most common cases of abuse reported by the children are forced marriages, corporal punishment, quarreling among parents and child labour.
As a leader, I always encourage the children to report such cases to police just as we were taught by SAO. I once received three cases of child abuse through the form of forced marriage. I talked to the parents of these three children and told them that it’s not right to force children into marriage but they did not listen.
When the probation officer came to our school, I told her about the cases. Unfortunately, the three girls had already conceived but the probation Officer’s intervention has helped control the problem because parents are now afraid they will be arrested.
Now that we are at home, we help our parents in digging, doing house chores and taking care of our young siblings.
I also revise my books at 4pm after doing all chores. I plan on checking on club members to listen to their challenges and share ideas. This will be after SAO has given us masks which I will wear and make sure that I wash my hands before going into my friends’ homes.
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