By SARAH TEMBO-
ZAMBIA is a youthful nation with 50 per cent of the population below the age of 15 years old.
On the other hand children and youths in Zambia experience significant problems including child neglect, child labour, sexual abuse, child marriage and mostly affected by bad practices.
As a developing country, statistics show that Zambia has high levels of poverty having 64 per cent of its total population being poor with the rural population overall poverty levels at 80 per cent as compared to their urban counterparts at 34 per cent
Poverty, coupled with current rising of food and fuel prices, scarcity of food and inadequate knowledge of good infant feeding practices worsen chronic nutrition problems.
Statistics further review that 50 per cent of children under the age of five years are affected by malnutrition, 18 per cent are underweight, 45 per cent are stunted while 12 per cent suffer from wasting
The majority of children in Zambia do not have access to quality education and access to education is further hampered by limited school places and long distances
Statistics also reveal that in recent years there has been an increase in primary school enrolments; however poor children including those in rural areas are most likely to enrol late, have poor attendance and have a tendency to drop out early due to distance and other challenges.
Further infrastructure requirements and teacher dissatisfaction with rural placement result in double, triple and quadruple sessions which reduce in-class leaning time to below acceptable limits.
The poor quality of education contributes to high unemployment rates among the youth and is exacerbated by limited vocational training opportunities, poor access to credit and business support and under developed formal economy
The   HIV/AIDS pandemic has also affected children resulting in orphan-hood and increased vulnerability.
Statistics reveal that as a result of HIV and AIDS more than 20 per cent of the Zambian children have lost one or both parents.
In most cases children whose parents and caregivers have died due to the epidemic face discrimination, stigmatisation and rejection.
Violence and abuse of children and young people is widespread, family, community and school environments frequently fail to provide the protection and care to which all children and young people are entitled
Knowledge on children’s rights is low and while the relevant structures for the promotion and protection of children’s rights exist, the implementation of laws protecting children is weak
Girls and women face a number of discriminatory practices and are more likely to drop out of school and marry early.
Child labour is common, statistics show that there are approximately 1.3 million children working in Zambia, many of them working in hazardous jobs that include commercial sex work.
It is because of the following reasons that Plan International Zambia has embarked on several projects, campaigns and programmes targeted at the well being of children in Zambia.
Plan International begun working in Zambia in 1964, and is at the moment working with most vulnerable and disadvantaged children and their families in four provinces
Plan aims at addressing challenges that affect children, young people and their parents to improve their quality of lives through empowerment and skills training.
Among the campaigns that Plan International has embarked on is the BECAUSE AM A CHILD campaign.
Because am Child is Plan’s global campaign to fight gender inequality, promote girls rights and lift million of children out of poverty
Plan Zambia child protection manager Ernest Mwenya said In the course of the campaign girls will be empowered to enjoy their rights, have increased skills and their social position and values will be recognised and appreciated in society.
Under the BECAUSE AM
A CHILD campaign the organisation would in August this year lunch a project dubbed 18+ which is aimed at ending child marriages in the country.
The project would also helps promote girl children’s rights to education as many are married off by their parents at the expense of school.
Mr Mwenya said this had continued to pose a negative impact on child protection in Zambia.
Mr Mwenya said during a workshop that early marriages must be discouraged as early child birth among girls sometimes lead to fistul as a result of complication during child birth.
The project would also protect a girl child from harmful cultural practices such as Ukalasa Imbusa or Chinamwali initiation ceremonies where girls were prepared on how to take care of man at a very tender age.
The 18+ project would be implemented in most parts of the country by Plan International Zambia.
Another campaign which the organisation will soon embark on is LEARN WITHOUT FEAR under
“The Good School Project” aimed at creating a good learning environment for the children in Zambia.
The campaign would be embarked on owing to the increase in cases of sexual abuse, corporal punishments, bullying, and teacher verbal abuse which have remained the major factors that create unsafe learning environment for pupils.
Plan international Zambia Communications Manager Lazarous Mwale said it is for this reason that Plan International Zambia in partnership with Danish partners, DANIDA, will in the next two months launch a Good School Project aimed at bringing together teachers, pupils and parents in a bid to address this challenge.
“We have observed that there are some challenges which pupils go through in schools which do not provide an enabling environment for the pupils, so what we want is to create an environment where schools becomes enjoyable  and safe for every child,” he said.
In additional the organisation has also embarked on  a campaign called COUNT EVERY CHILD under the universal birth registration of the United Nations for the purposes of sensitising the masses on the importance of birth registration and participation.
Plan International Zambia has observed that Zambia lacks the capacity to sensitise society on the importance of birth registration and this is why the country has only 10 per cent of people with birth certificates.
Mr Mwenya said there is need for different stake holders to partner with Government in building capacity.
He stressed the need for birth registration as this can help children access rights such as health care, education and protection
Birth registration can help the country count the population or predict trends such as rising birth and death rates.
Plan Zambia has further called on the government to decentralise the issuing points of birth registration certificates as currently the country has only Lusaka as the registration point.
As plan international strives to better the lives of the children there is need for every Zambian to join and support of this noble call if we are to end the challenges that affects children.