What is Happening in Africa? ( Congo / Nambia / Nigeria )

From worrying child labour operations in Ivory Coast and Ghana to scarily high femicide rates in South Africa and displacement numbers in Cameroon hitting the roof, Africa is currently going through extremely unfortunate times. Three countries that you may have seen trending on your social media feeds recently are most likely the Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia and Nigeria and so those are the three countries that I would like to try and talk to you about before addressing other issues in Africa that are also very important to write about. If all we can do to help is to just keep ourselves educated and share awareness then just like I've said before... that is more than enough.  

Congo (#whatshappeningincongo)
Congo has one of the World's largest reserves of Coltan, which happens to be an important mineral for things such as aerospace engineering, the making of electronic devices and the innovation of technology in general. In almost a dystopian manner, the people of Congo, including children at extremely young ages are being required to work in horrible conditions to mine for this Coltan. Countries in the Western World such as the United States, France and even the United Kingdom are funding Uganda and Rwanda to invade places with high rates of Coltan and people are being killed in the process. 

The people of Congo are suffering. There are reports of people being tortured, raped, killed and more. A supposed 48 women are being raped every hour with millions of people displaced and 6 million dead. 

As well as this, more than 50,000 people have been made to fee their homes after armed groups have been reported attacking innocent civilians. Once again a majority of these are children and they are being hurt, raped, kidnapped and attacked. 

Namibia(#shutitalldownNamibia)
Currently, in the country of Namibia, at least 200 cases of domestic violence are reported monthly and more than 1600 cases of rape have been reported in the last two years alone. This is why protesters of all genders, races etc. are taking to the streets to demand that a state of emergency is declared across Namibia and refusing to not stop the #shutitdown protests until their voices are heard. Since protests have started the government have promised to attempt tackling sexual and gender based violence but these protests will continue to happen until the government can truly listen to the people of Namibia. 

"If women can't live their lives properly in Namibia, then nobody should"

This is the message that lies behind the movement as it is everyone's right to be able to feel safe wherever they go in their daily life and this message will be pushed until it is accepted. 

Nigeria(#endsars)
For the last few months, activism against police brutality in the United States has seemed to be at its peak. However, police brutality is an extremely damaging thing that takes place in more countries than it should and now Nigeria is uniting to take a stand and fight back against police brutality that is taking place in their own country against Sars. 'Sars' is short for the 'Special Anti- Robbery Squad'. Introduced in 1984, the squad was seen as successful for their management in Nigeria but recently this has not been the case and in the last few weeks the people of Nigeria have been protesting in hope to have Sars be held accountable for their harassment, abuse and even murder of innocent youths all over the country. From January 2017 - May 2020, Amnesty International reported over 80 cases of torture, ill treatment and extra-judicial execution from the group alone. 

Protests, although starting in Nigeria, have swept the media causing worldwide outrage. Protests have taken place in London, Dublin, New York and even Canada.

How can you help?
As I mentioned earlier in this article, keeping yourselves informed is one of the most vital things to do. Once you do this, make sure you're spreading awareness, re-posting valid information so other people can be informed too. Although I personally am yet to find any, signing petitions and donating to charities are other great things to do. The fight is not over, so keep going. Speak out where you can and even share a prayer. If every individual even does something little then all of a sudden , our acts together are not so little anymore.

Sources:
  • https://www.instagram.com/p/CGYhQQ5l60J/
  • https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/19/africa/namibia-gender-based-violence-protests-intl/index.html
  • https://www.instagram.com/p/CGZJPo5l9Bn/
  • https://news.sky.com/story/end-sars-why-nigerias-anti-police-brutality-protests-have-gone-global-12107555
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_SARS#:~:text=Casualties,for%20police%20oppression%20and%20brutality.
  • https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-54575219
  • https://www.instagram.com/p/CGHdXg4lwQU/

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