Why do children suddenly want to be mothers?

A teenage mother-to-be



Across the continent, poverty has taken its toll on many Third World countries. In Asia, Africa, and Latin America, teenage pregnancy, lack of education, prostitution, and juvenile crime are so prevalent that they have affected the socio-economic sectors of these countries. 


However, things are now changing. What used to be the problem of these poverty-stricken countries has now shifted to Europe and the United States of America.

Teenage pregnancy is now booming in the USA, Britain, the Netherlands, and France, and in fact throughout the whole of Europe. 

The question is why children, who have a lot more chances and facilities for education than their counterparts in the Third World, suddenly choose to be mothers instead? Is it peer pressure? Are they from a family of a broken marriage? Or victims of alcohol and drug abuse, or simply ignorance?

It is now very common to see children and sometimes adults who can speak their own language in Europe, including Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium, but can’t read or write. Is that illiteracy or semi-illiteracy? 

The Dutch Youth and Family Affairs Minister recently said that “Sexual morals of the country’s youngsters have gone astray. A girl is seen as an object, and sex as a currency. The meaning of love does not play any role anymore in the lives of youngsters.”

He stressed that if the mentality among Dutch youths is to enter a garage to get a girl and the very moment you want sex, then we have lost the principle of moral relationship. Many have distorted ideas about sex. Said Andre Rouvoet. 

The minister was responding to a television documentary, “Sex Sells,” aired on Dutch television, which showed 12- to 16-year-old boys and girls speaking openly about sex.

The open experience sex debate revealed that some of the youngsters had their first sexual experience at the age of 9. The average of they lost their virginity at the age of 13. 

If the same problems taking place in so-called Third World countries are also occurring in Europe and the USA, then I’m afraid there are no more differences between a Third World country and an advanced country anymore.

TAKING CARE OF CHILDREN WITHOUT PARENTS

Orphans in Africa



Studies by psychologists show that emotional distress in adolescence and adulthood, including depression, alcoholism, anxiety, and suicidal tendencies, is often associated with abuse and bereavement suffered in childhood. 


Many young children have undergone diverse emotional distresses that are not their fault. Take, for instance, because of divorce alone, thousands of children born today spend their lives in a single-parent family. This contributed to the high rate of child delinquency.

On many occasions, when a child is bereaved, adults think they are too young to feel the loss. According to psychological reports, this assumption is absolutely wrong. 


Until recently, most psychologists believed that there was no way to help a mourning child recover from painful encounters with separation and loss. These are a few recommendations suggested by psychologists to help a bereaved child. Communication starts by telling the child...

“You are not alone. I’m with you.” Hold the child who trusts you on your lap and soothe her with long strokes. Finally, one can put an arm around the child’s shoulders, in this way easing the tension that builds up in the head, neck, and shoulders.

AN AFRICAN IN ANTWERP, A resident's story

The tale of an African in Belgium


"I want the Belgian authorities to know that the media have failed to address the crime that is perpetrated on foreigners. I will publish it," -Joel Savage.


The Belgium-based African journalist Joel Savage has published a pocket-sized book, An African in Antwerp. It’s his true life experience and a personal encounter about how he lives in a city where one in three adults is known to vote for the Extreme Right Party. 

It is also in Antwerp where Ouleymatou, the African nanny, was gunned down with the toddler under her care in broad daylight in a racist attack by Hans Van Themsche in May 2006. Joel Savage’s pocketbook is handy, small, and easy to read. An hour of good reading.

An African in Antwerp explains in detail how immigrants are systematically abused and blackmailed by landlords, employers, and even friends. We’re under constant threat, and the Police do very little to help. 

It reminds me of the number of mixed-race couples I have known where African men are under constant pressure… “don’t do this or I will call the Police,” And in Europe.

 

The police come, every time they’re called, because if something really happens, they never want to be accused of negligence. And in any encounter with the police, the first thing they ask for is your Identification documents.

While Africans demand treatment with dignity in Europe, the same is still tricky in Africa. And honestly, a collective good treatment in foreign lands will remain a tricky issue as long as human rights issues are not dealt with decisively in Africa. 

In my opinion, the continued racism in Europe, America, and Australia has direct roots in Africa, and the day five nations like Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, and Congo will raise the dignity of their citizens to be at par with an acceptable international level, the world will be forced to respect Africa.

So in Joel’s book, it's very interesting to read how honesty and hard work have helped him thrive in a society that offers little to its black population. Belgium is a country traumatized by the loss of its colonial power in Congo. 

It was a painful divorce that the tiny European kingdom was not able to cope with. They like their selective memories of their past with the Congo, how they brought civilization to Africa. But not how King Leopold III annexed a country as big as the whole of Western Europe and one of the richest in the world, to his personal wealth portfolio.

The tyranny, killing, and raping of African women is not part of that good old past. Last year, the Belgian award-winning film producer Georges Kamanayo, himself a product of a Belgian colonial man in Africa, exclaimed that his picture and many other mixed children like him are missing in the beautiful family album.

 

The family album that Belgium so proudly presents everywhere is of a happy family. This year, the country is preparing to remember the World Expo held in Brussels in 1958. But man, this is 2008, and Africa has long gained independence. Joel Savage’s book is available in African shops in Belgium.

The updated book is now published in America as 'Little Boygium-Wonderful experience.' 

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Boygium-Experience-Joel-Savage-ebook/dp/B013SJ7DCW?