Tanzania: Mwinyi Urges Safeguarding Children's Rights

ZANZIBAR President Dr Hussein Mwinyi has called for concerted efforts among members of the public in safeguarding children's right.

Dr Mwinyi said here in his message to mark the 'Ethics and Human Rights Day' that everyone has a great role to play in ensuring that violence against children stops and that they live a decent life.

He said children in the country need better care, insisting that the government will double efforts to curb increasing cases of abuse and violation of the children's rights.

"We must work together to ensure children in all areas of our country live peacefully and are protected," he said.

Dr Mwinyi told the gathering at the Sheikh Idriss Abdulwakil Hall that the government has been taking different measures to stop the menace.

"The government has been doing a lot for children's development, including enactment of strict laws as well as adopting and implementing international laws and conventions regarding children rights," President Mwinyi said.

However, he insisted that the burden of protecting children should be for all and not for the government institutions alone.

Dr Mwinyi said that abuse of children is a violation of human rights.

This year's Ethics and Human Rights Day theme: 'Recover Better - Stand Up for Human Rights' relates to the Covid-19 pandemic and focuses on the need to build back better by ensuring human rights are central to recovery efforts.

Ethics and Human Rights Day is marked on December 09 and 10 respectively, but Zanzibar celebrated it yesterday because the official days were occupied with the then Tanganyika Independence Day.

According to the UN, the Ethics and Human Rights Day is an opportunity to reaffirm the importance of human rights in re-building the world we want, the need for global solidarity as well as our interconnectedness and shared humanity.

It says that Human Rights are at the heart of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as in the absence of human dignity we cannot hope to drive sustainable development.

Human Rights are driven by progress on all SDGs, and the SDGs are driven by advancements on human rights.