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Angola's Children
Bearing the greatest cost of war
Introduction
Angola has the natural potential to be one of the richest countries in Africa, but for nearly four decades the majority of Angolans have known nothing but war and conflict. During this period, though, more people have died from malnutrition, disease and a lack of clean water and sanitation than as a direct result of the fighting.
From the early 1960s until 1974 a war was waged with the colonial power, Portugal. This was followed by a civil war which continued until 1994. Desultory conflict continued despite a negotiated settlement and full-scale war resumed in December 1998 when the peace deal between rebel forces and the government finally collapsed. As a consequence, there has been a near-continuous mass movement of people for many years, involving mainly young families, unaccompanied children, and the elderly.
Nearly three years ago the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) described Angola as “the country whose children are at the greatest risk of death, malnutrition, abuse and development failure”. Events since then have led to a worsening of the situation. UNITA, having lost its capacity to wage conventional warfare, shifted to guerrilla tactics, thus destabilising large parts of rural Angola and exerting a severe regime of control over the civilians living under them. Although the government went ahead with plans to resettle displaced persons, and minimum standards for resettlement were enshrined in Angolan law late in 2000, these have yet to be put into operation before resettlement takes place. Since the beginning of 1998 the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has risen by three million to over 4.3 million—some 30% of the population—75% of whom are women and children. Most IDPs are close to destitution, having been forced to flee their homes, abandoning possessions and livestock.
In late 2001 UNICEF warned that Angola’s social indicators pointed to a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. The first concrete signs of just how severe the crisis is became most evident in May 2002 as the ceasefire (signed in April 2002 following the death of UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi two months previously) made possible the movement of previously trapped populations. Doctors Without Borders appealed for an immediate global relief effort to help the tens of thousands of IDPs who were pouring into Angola’s provincial cities in search of food. Signs of a severe state of malnutrition and intense suffering throughout the ‘grey zones’ (those previously inaccessible to humanitarian organisations) were reported.
It is now widely anticipated that one of the effects of the ceasefire will be to add to the numbers already needing assistance, an anticipated increase of up to 300,000 during the next six months, bringing the total number of IDPs to 4.6 million and increasing the current emergency caseload by 25%. This will place massive demands on the already overstretched humanitarian organisations, which could not have foreseen the magnitude of the emerging crisis. Only 30% of the consolidated appeal for US$233 million that was prepared in late 2001 has been met, and that figure was based on estimates that failed to anticipate the additional caseload agencies now face.
Poverty indicators
Poverty reduces an adult’s capacity to take care of children. Angola is currently ranked 146 out of 162 countries on the UNDP’s Human Development Index. Indicators show that the incidence of poverty in Angola is among the worst in the world—not only in terms of income levels, but also in terms of the provision of public services such as health and education. Life expectancy stands at 42 years, lower than the average of 48 years for sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. For IDPs the situation is that much more precarious. Public services have been in decline since the 1980s, and have since been devastated in the rural areas. Displacement has resulted in rapid urbanisation that now measures 50%, the majority fleeing to peri-urban areas under government control. Inadequate nutrition, contaminated water, and rapid urbanisation in a context of virtually no urban planning or urban infrastructure, have created an environment in which the risk of disease is high.
A minority of displaced persons live within IDP camps or resettlement villages. Prior to the ceasefire, aid was reaching only 10% to 15% of the country, principally around the towns, with only the 1.2 million IDPs confirmed by humanitarian organisations receiving aid. Conditions in camps and transit centres are unsanitary and overcrowded. Food, shelter and medical supplies are in short supply. Demand for food at most feeding centres already exceeds maximum capacity. Basic water and sanitation are lacking in most centres with only 30% of the occupants having access to potable water. Access to land is limited to a maximum of one hectare per family.
It is difficult to say which region is hardest hit, as IDPs are widespread throughout all 18 provinces. The largest total concentration runs along a vertical axis from Uige, south toward Huila, through Malanje, Huambo, Huila and Bie provinces.
Children younger than 15 comprise over half of Angola’s population of some 13 million. Twenty per cent of them are under the age of five, and it is they who have borne the brunt of displacement and growing impoverishment, suffering catastrophic loss of family members, the absence of basic education and health services. More than one million children are believed to have no access at all to education or health care facilities.
Education
Since 1998, 80% of the schools in Angola have been destroyed or abandoned. Some teaching at under-staffed and under-equipped schools takes place in the provinces, though most of these schools are in an advanced state of disrepair. There is a general scarcity of teachers. It is only in Luanda that children stand a chance of receiving an adequate education, but here too there are severe constraints: less than half the teachers are properly trained; there is a serious lack of classroom space, and teacher to pupil ratios can be as high as 1:80. Unsurprisingly, failure rates are high, and few children even enter high school.
Less than 10% of children are registered at birth. This lack of documentation limits their subsequent access to education, health facilities and employment. Even with documentation, few parents can afford schooling for their children in a country that has an official poverty rate of 67%. The government has reported that 70% of children between six and 14 years old are likely to be illiterate.
The government has consistently spent below 15% of its budget on the social sector, and in some years below 10%, and most of this is on salaries and administration in the health and education sectors.
Health
Public health services are so severely debilitated as to be effectively non-existent, with most healthcare provision outside of the main centres now left to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and church groups. There is only one paediatric hospital in the whole of Angola (in Luanda) and its facilities and resources are very limited: children are often forced to share a bed with two or three others, and no meals are provided.
According to UNICEF and the UNDP Human Development Report 2000, Angola’s basic indicators are among the worst in the world: one mother in five died while giving birth, 42% of children were underweight for their age. Among the displaced, rates of infant and under-five mortality (236 and 395 per 1,000 live births respectively) are much worse than the already catastrophic national rates of 166 and 292 out of every 1,000 live births respectively, which are themselves among the highest in the world. Many of Angola’s children do not even each school-going age: one in three children die before the age of five. Malaria is a leading cause of mortality for children under the age of five, followed by diarrhoeal infections, malnutrition and respiratory infections. More than 50% of children are stunted.
In the two years since 1999, conditions have deteriorated further. An increasing number of moderately malnourished children have appeared at supplementary and therapeutic feeding centres, including a disturbingly high percentage of children between five and 12 years, a vulnerable group often undetected by the routine nutritional surveys. Vaccination campaigns have not reached many areas, especially during the past few years, resulting in periodic outbreaks of polio and measles. Fewer than 40% of children receive routine immunisation for vaccine-preventable diseases.
HIV/AIDS threatens to overshadow these traditional health problems, and as in the rest of Southern Africa, “it is likely to become the single most serious threat to the health and well-being of Angolans”.1 The development of the disease will place further strain on health services, further impoverish households, and create yet more orphans. Although exact figures are not available and the incidence of the pandemic is probably grossly under-reported, especially outside of Luanda, close on 8,000 children are thought by UNAIDS to be infected with the virus and an estimated 98,000 of under-15s have lost a mother or both parents to the disease.
And as if this is not enough, Angola is strewn with more land mines than any other country in the world, eight to 10 million in total. Of those injured or killed by landmines last year, 70% were civilians, and 50% of these were IDPs. There are now over 70,000 amputees in the country, mostly women and children. Landmines, both anti-tank and anti-personnel, have taken a heavy toll on Angola’s women as they forage for food and firewood. Children are even attracted to some of the weapons since they resemble toys.
Psychological trauma
Conflict profoundly damages the personal and emotional development of a child, damaging the family and community life that provides the security within which children learn and develop. According to UNICEF about one million children have lost one parent in the war, and almost 300,000 have lost both parents. It is estimated that more than half the children from the most war-torn regions have been shot at, lost their homes, or seen neighbours and members of their families killed. Children have lived with the very real fear that UNITA would invade their villages, kill people, and destroy homes and loot their already scarce food supplies. The Christian Children’s Fund, an NGO which provides psycho-social assistance to children in areas most affected by the war, has reported on studies of the psychological stress of children in IDP camps: 82% had come under fire; 66% had seen people killed or tortured; 24% had lost a limb.2
Mass abductions of children have also been a continuing problem. An estimated 300,000 children have been forcibly recruited by the armed forces, both government and UNITA, to be used as messengers, sex slaves, human shields and mine detectors, to carry supplies, act as spies and bear arms.
Street children
There are thought to be over 10,000 street children in Angola, of whom an estimated 5,000 are in Luanda, driven to the urban areas by both poverty and the civil war over the past eight years. Conditions in Luanda are appalling. In the past 40 years a city with a population of 300,000 has become a sprawling mass of squalid slums with a population of over three million. There is no electricity, sewage removal or clean water in these shantytowns surrounding the central city.
Of all the children in Angola, perhaps none struggle harder or live such a tenuous existence as the children living on the streets of this overcrowded capital. The coastal cities of Benguela and Lobito, and the inland town of Luena have also seen an increase in the number of street children. Separated from their families and unable to rely on kinship networks, they tend to organise into smaller groups with an older child protecting younger children, socially isolated in ghettoised buildings. Many are orphaned or abandoned; some have left starving families or abusive environments. For children, survival requires washing cars, carrying water, scavenging in dustbins or prostituting themselves. Even for those children who do have a family, the options are limited. The economies of provincial cities are so weak and job opportunities virtually non-existent so that children often make more money than adult family members by working on the streets hawking merchandise, washing cars or as domestic workers. They do not have time to play and are easy prey for falling into delinquency and drugs (petrol, glue and other solvents are sniffed), and extremely vulnerable to diseases and abuse. The majority have never attended school, and very few receive any help.
Ceasefire: the way ahead
It is now a matter of urgency that the government and the international agencies join hands and immediately mobilise supplies of food, medicine and water. If there is not a timeous response, a deeper humanitarian disaster could result that would clearly compromise the fragile process of peace, stability and the reconciliation that has started.
The need to provide for the country’s children, who suffer the most from food shortages and have faced the greatest risk of poor health, is desperate. A shocking 30% of children in Angola are starving, while the number of children under five years old suffering illness because of poor food is currently at its highest for 25 years. In May, UN Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, stated after visiting the eastern and central provinces of Bie, Moxico and Benguela that “almost uniformly, all the children suffer from some disease or other—malaria usually, pneumonia, measles, skin diseases”.3 MSF reported that in Huila province mortality rates were five times higher than the accepted alert threshold, malnutrition being the leading cause of mortality. In the short-term, there is a possibility of the situation descending into a tragedy of major proportions unless urgent action is taken.
Highlighting the importance of children’s needs being an urgent priority in the rehabilitation of Angola, Otunnu has called for an “overarching national institution with political weight” to deal with issues affecting children in post-war Angola. Not only will the Government Ministry of Social Assistance and Reintegration (MINARS) have to spend much more on social services, it also needs to function as an effective structure for the co-ordination of NGO efforts.
Although the primary responsibility for Angola’s children lies with the government, until now aid agencies have taken over the provision of basic services as the government has effectively abrogated its responsibilities to international humanitarian agencies, blaming the lack of funds on the war. This claim rings somewhat hollow for Angola, as Africa’s second largest oil producer, earned US$3.5 billion last year in oil and diamond revenues. While a substantial amount of this has gone into buying arms and prosecuting the war; even more may have been siphoned off by the ruling elite. Agencies are now waiting for a clear indication from the government to indicate both their role, and also the kind of assistance and the framework of assistance needed by agencies as partners. They are also pressurising the government to show greater responsibility in the allocation of funds, and a commitment to transparency in respect of oil accounts.
In the short- to medium-term, food distribution, medical care, vaccination programmes and quick impact projects designed to reintegrate children and their families into their home communities are urgently needed. Projects to restore the basic infrastructure such as roads, schools, clinics, wells, rehabilitate water and sanitation systems are critical, and these should include components for training and employment opportunities.
In the medium- to long-term, investing in the future of the young people of Angola is critical. They are an essential and powerful force for reconstruction, potentially also for peace and social progress.
Substantially more government resources need to be devoted to health, education and human development and concerted efforts made to improve children’s access to the services that are their basic right. The government is aware of the gravity of the situation and has already made some effort—this year’s budget includes an increase in spending on the social sector, but remains inadequate given the magnitude of the problems. The Ministry of Justice has launched an 18-month campaign to register and identify five million children and teenagers, and MINARS has started a Family Tracing and Reunification Programme. Documents have been lost and rebels have ransacked government offices in towns and villages across the country, destroying public records.
Key priorities for the future
A strong and functioning education system is the most urgent and critical aspect of reintegration and reconstruction. Girls, in particular, need access to education that will enable them to improve their situation. This requires the rehabilitation of schools, the training of teachers and a recruitment drive for new teachers. There must be a major focus on adolescents though the provision of education, literacy and vocational training and skills development. Rehabilitation programmes for child landmine victims should include orthopaedic and prosthetic programmes for amputees, education and vocational training.
In the health sector a massive intervention and interagency co-ordination is needed. Ideally, this would integrate the health systems of government, NGOs and UNITA to address the rehabilitation of clinics; the provision of clean water and basic sanitation; vaccination and disease prevention programmes; HIV/AIDS education and prevention as well as testing to determine the level of infection in different target groups; and the introduction of programmes that target reproductive health. At all levels the medical system needs to be supported in prioritising child health concerns.
Sufficient funds should be devoted to promoting landmine awareness, mapping their positions and removing them from the ground.
Child soldiers need to be identified and reunited with their communities following a process of demobilisation and reintegration into society by way of training programmes. The Lusaka Peace Accord signed in 1994 acknowledged that there were about 9,000 children serving in the opposing armed forces.
Rehabilitation programmes for street children are needed that look to education and vocation training, programmes to support awareness around sexual abuse and exploitation, raising awareness about the problem, and improving measures for basic social security.
Agencies are now operating at full capacity but lack sufficient resources to meet the critical needs of children. They are concerned primarily with addressing the immediate physical and economic problems of food, water, shelter and physical health, and in the context of limited financial resources from either government or aid agencies, the psychological problems of traumatised children are simply not a priority. Programmes to promote and protect the human rights of children, so many of whom have been violated, must be established as well as counselling programmes to rehabilitate and support children suffering from the long-term effects of war trauma.
A number of national and international NGOs supplement government services where they can. Churches are also important partners in the implementation of broad programmes at project level. Local capacity does not exist to deal with the magnitude of Angola’s humanitarian challenge, though the will is definitely there.
Long-term prognosis
All of Angola’s children are direct or indirect victims in the war. They have been the people most disadvantaged by the conflict and they are now the most vulnerable. It will take generations for Angola’s people to recover from a war that has lasted more than three decades. If the children of Angola, none of whom have ever known peace, are to have any chance in life, the government must establish a comprehensive programme of reconstruction and rehabilitation with significant donor support for its implementation, and, together with a strengthened Angolan civil society, all role players must act in partnership and with urgency.
Notes
- T Hodges, Angola from Afro-Stalinism to petro-diamond capitalism, p 34. See also Recovering from 30 years of war: Refugee women and children in Angola, Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, Delegation to Angola, December 1996.
- <www.christianchildrensufund.org>
- Reuters, 18 May 2002.
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