Leiden University, Netherlands
February 8, 2021
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Professor Ton Liefaard,
- Vice-Dean for Education
- Professor of Children’s Rights
- UNICEF Chair in Children’s Rights
I thank you so much for that kind introduction.
I also extend my gratitude to:
- the Faculty Board of Leiden (LAY-DEN) Law School and
- the College of Deans of Leiden (LAY-DEN) University for your gracious decision to confer an honorary doctoral degree upon me.
I humbly accept this recognition with deep gratefulness and my sincere appreciation. And as I am so warmly welcomed into the Leiden (LAY-DEN) University family, I am compelled to couple my gratitude with a challenge to us today.
As we enter into a new year, we find ourselves at the cusp of a new beginning—not just to a calendar, academic year, or a commemorative season of the 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action—but a novel beginning to the way we think about the human condition and an unprecedented manner in which we must operate to ensure our own collective survival.
Like an earthquake, COVID has shaken us to our core and left us the task to rebuild and reengineer our societies from its rubble. It has signalled the urgent need for us to lift the weight of the social ills that, for far too long, women and children have been shouldering, and to close the social inequities that have deepened to devastating depths.
I am so pleased to be a part of this convening today, as Leiden (LAY-DEN) University is an internationally recognized research university and Leiden (LAY-DEN) Law School has developed itself into an international knowledge centre of human rights. I know I am in good company when I say that the world needs its most brilliant minds to dedicate themselves to figuring out how we sustainably rebuild our world into a much more just and equitable one.
Right here at Leiden (LAY-DEN) University, you are well positioned to lead a movement of stellar legal minds, social scientists, and research bodies to start anew in our challenging context and identify ways in which our economies, our schools, our health and food systems, as well our families and communities can recover from the devastation we are experiencing and emerge more resilient, vibrant and equal.
And so, I challenge you today to dedicate your expertise and all the resources at your disposal to mounting a response equal to the magnitude of our task. Do produce research and propose strategies of new systems and ways of being that will enable us to heal individually and collectively, and repair our brokenness. And as you do so, I encourage you to meaningfully put women and children at the heart of your scholarship. Their engagement is key to reversing the unhealthy power imbalances we have lived with for far too long, and essential to redesigning human relationships into one of mutual respect and equity for us all.
Please utilize your intellectual capital and build coalitions amongst your international networks of other centers of excellence—in both the Global North and the Global South– to define for us the architecture of a society that we need to build so that we live together— healthy and safe — as equals and fully embracing all our rich diversity.
Please accept my heartfelt gratitude once again for the tremendous honour of this honorary degree and look forward to walking hand in hand with you as we meet the many challenges that lay before us in rebuilding as a human family.
I thank you.
The Trust supports and mobilises civil society networks on issues of ending child marriage, ending violence against children, ending female genital mutilation and promoting children’s rights, to carry out advocacy and action across Africa. Special focus is placed on Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia where child marriage continues to be a problem largely driven by poverty, gender inequality, harmful traditional practices, conflict, low levels of literacy, limited opportunities for girls and weak or non-existent protective and preventive legal frameworks.
Education is a fundamental right for all children, which is also a vehicle for social, economic and political transformation in communities, countries and the African continent at large. Recent studies indicate a lack of progress in some of the critical commitments aimed at improving education quality, access, retention and achievement, particularly for girls. In most African countries, girls may face barriers to learning, especially when they reach post-primary levels of education. By implementing multi-dimensional approaches to education which includes core education, personal development, life skills and economic competencies, the Trust partners with funding partners, governments, civil societies and the private sector to improve education access.
The Nutrition and Reproductive, Maternal, New-born, Child and Adolescent Health and Nutrition, (RMNCAH+N) of the Children’s Rights and Development Programme aims at promoting the Global Strategy for women, children and adolescents’ health within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda. The strategy emphasises on the importance of effective country leadership as a common factor across countries making progress in improving the health of women, children and adolescents.
Through its Early Childhood Development (ECD) plan, The Trust will seek to put into action the new science and evidence Report that was presented by Lancet Series on Good and early development – the right of every child. This will be achieved by mobilising like-minded partners to contribute in the new science and evidence to reach all young children with ECD. The Trust’s goal is to be a catalyst for doing things differently, in particular, to rid fragmentation and lack of coordination across ECD sectors. In response to evidence showing the importance of political will in turning the tide against the current poor access and quality of ECD. Even before conception, starting with a mother’s health and social economic conditions, the early years of a child’s life form a fundamental foundation that determines whether a child will survive and thrive optimally.