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Life for children in the Republic of the Congo should be better
than for other children on the African continent; there are high
literacy levels (running at 82.8% ~ one of the the highest across Africa) and
longer periods of education, which is both compulsory and free for
children aged six to fifteen bolstered by the government there pledging to increase its funding for education up to 20% of the country's budget for recurrent expenditures, provided oil revenues continue to grow. Despite these figures
including high attendance rates (averaging 80% across the
country), it is widely acknowledged that the actual standard of
the schooling itself is of an unsatisfactory quality not least
because the schools themselves are under resourced. As with many countries, life can be very different for children in urban and
rural areas. For example, 84% of children living in towns and cities have
access to safe drinking water whilst this drops to just 27% for children
living in rural areas of the Republic of Congo.
Similarly,
access to healthcare varies considerably not least because 66% of all
doctors in the country live and practise in the capital city Brazzaville.
The situation is also wanting for the
indigenous children in the Congo still called 'pygmies'. These
children are often discriminated against by other Congolese and are regularly subjected to physical or other abuse. During the civil war, the pygmies, who
make up 2% of the country's population, were treated as 'game' and even
hunted down and eaten often by members of the Movement for the Liberation of
Congo. Today many pygmies and their children still live as slaves to Bantu
masters. Efforts to improve their
circumstances are hampered not least because many of the children have
difficulty in attending school as birth certificates are required for enrolment. Few have such documents as their very lifestyle is outside of
such societal norms. As such, despite education being compulsory, just over
one in three indigenous children between the ages of 12-15 attend school.
Child labour is also an issue in Congo Brazzaville with many young people engaged in the production of cocoa, farming, catching and processing fish and raising livestock as well as more labourious tasks such as breaking stones in quarries with the Republic of Congo being recognised as a source and destination country for
the trafficking of children with many children in the country living as refugees having fled the ongoing conflict in the Democratic
Republic of Congo. Many of these children end up on the streets with the problem being
particularly high in the country's capital of Brazzaville, where there are
an estimated two thousand children sleeping rough.
Children particularly vulnerable to living on the streets are the 7-10% of
the child population with disabilities as they are socially excluded, rarely
attend school and are thus ill equipped to find employment, making life on
the streets more inevitable. Despite these wide ranging concerns, the government is making some progress on the Convention on the Rights of the Child
and has recently enacted laws on child protection. The government has also been
overseeing a program to ensure that all children have a birth certificate to
prove their nationality.
Of the Republic of Congo's 1,716,000 children,
69,000 have been orphaned by AIDS
and a further 6,600 are infected themselves. 26% of children under the age of
five are chronically malnourished whilst 47% have a vitamin A deficiency, with
33% having an iron deficiency. Children also
face risks of infections of diseases such as bacterial and protozoa diarrhoea,
hepatitis A and typhoid fever as well as rabies and Malaria, the latter
accounting for 35% of all child deaths in hospitals in Brazzaville and Pointe
Noire. Life expectancy for all children in the Republic of Congo is 64.57 years (2019). The video (below) provides some insight
into the life in Congo Brazzaville together with projects and programs to support children and young people in the country.
Children in Congo Brazzaville: Serge Ibaka Foundation
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Children in Congo Brazzaville: MiracleFeet
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Children in Congo Brazzaville: AVSI
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Children in Congo Brazzaville: Sponsor Children in Congo Brazzaville
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Children in Congo Brazzaville: Republic of Congo Street Children
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Children in Congo Brazzaville: Volunteer in Congo Brazzaville
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Children in Congo Brazzaville: Country Profile
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