DISTRICT CONSULTATIONS REPORTS CHAPTER 2: Recommendations ? Schools must be authorised to register children. ? Those without parents must be allowed to get assistance from community leaders to acquire national documents. CHILD HEADED FAMILIES Challenges ? Many children are living alone and are facing starvation and malnutrition. Shelter is also a problem with them as they have no adult to build for them. Recommendations ? The community should take full responsibility of its children as orphans and vulnerable children look up to the community for protection, guidance and provision. ? Problems affecting them should first be addressed by local home-grown solutions before going out to call for government or NGOs for support. ? Community leaders such as village heads and chiefs should shoulder the responsibility of spearheading child protection for the benefit of the children. DISCRIMINATION Challenges ? There is preferential treatment of children by parents. ? Children are discriminating against each other. Recommendations ? At school teachers should ensure that children are not discriminated against as this amounts to emotional abuse. ? In communities parents and elders must also encourage children to accept one another. Parents must be educated on the negative effects of discrimination on children. FOOD Challenges ? Shortage of food especially when there has been poor harvests. Recommendations ? In times of drought and disasters such as cyclones and floods the government should help children by giving them food. HEALTH, WATER AND SANITATION Challenges ? Local clinics are not well stocked and equipped and are incapacitated to give children the medication they require. There is also shortage of qualified staff. ? Some parents have not immunized their children because of various reasons including religious beliefs. Consequently some children die of measles and other preventable illnesses. ? Most girls cannot afford sanitary wear and some end up using unhygienic things and material as sanitary wear. ? There is shortage of clean water sources and people resort to fetching unsafe water from rivers and dams. Recommendations ? The government must come up with constitutional measures to ensure that immunisation is made compulsory and parents who do not comply are arrested. ? The Ministry of Health should ensure that clinics in communities are well equipped and staffed so that children in rural areas are not disadvantaged. Most people in the rural areas cannot afford private hospitals. ? Sanitary wear for girls should be made cheaper so that all can afford. It should be even distributed for free. ? NGOs and the government should spread their initiative of drilling boreholes to more parts of the district so that the right of children to safe and clean water is upheld. CHILD PARTICIPATION IN THE CONSTITUTION MAKING PROCESS Children's consultations CONSOLIDATED REPORT 13