By Momodou Jarju
The National Youth Council (NYC) has on Monday engaged media personnel on unsafe migration with specific focus on children on the move.
Children on the move- means children leaving from one place to another within their countries or beyond due to many reasons, including war, conflict, natural disaster, searching for greener pasture, etc.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) almost 50 million children were on the move in 2016 either within their own countries or across borders to another country.
The day-long orientation which brought together about 20 participants was funded by UNICEF. It was meant to serve as a unique platform for journalists to learn child protection issues on migration reporting on children on the move.
Sulayman Ceesay, the facilitator of the event said the purpose of the orientation was to engage the journalists on migration reporting on children.
“Because we realize that most of the stories that are published on migration in the country don’t involve children, so as a result, we want to orient the journalists on that aspect,” he said.
Alagie Jarju, program manager national youth council, said the job of the journalists is quite important to them as a council in whatever they do that’s why they convened the orientation.
“This is a family we hold in high esteem and we hope this day orientation has at least provided some capacity. We know the capacity is there, whatever it adds, its certainly very minimal. But you are able to help us amplify the issues of children especially around migration,” he said.
Mr. Jarju said migration is a phenomenon in the country and mostly affects young people who legally are not necessarily children but there are few children who are migrating both within and outside the country, adding that most of these children are not accompanied.
“So these are voices of concerns that we want you people to be able to bring out, as to how do we advance issues of our children who tomorrow or in a year or two will become young adults,” Mr. Jarju said.
Njundu Drammeh, one of the trainers at the training took the participants through sensitive reporting on children issues as well as some of the legal instruments that deal with children. Modou S. Joof, also a trainer at the event and lecturer at the Media Academy for Journalism and Communication (MAJaC) delebrated on Migration in Gambian news and the ethics involved in the topics.
