EIS Amnesty Club and The Practice of Vidomegon in Benin: Amnesty International marks 50 years of fighting!!!

I long for the day when Amnesty is needed NO MORE! Human beings inflict on one another uninmaginable horrors!

I have started an Amnesty Club in the Middle school two years ago and I am so proud to see the Middle School and High School students taking their role of freedom fighters so seriously!! Through Socratic dialogues, I try to raise their consciousness and awareness of problems in our society.

Our club has re-energised the idea of the global citizen in our English International School of Cotonou.

The students and I care about individuals and we are all together united in action, standing in solidarity. We care about children and oppressed minorities. We fight torture, campaign against the death penalty, defend prisoners of conscience and the right of refugees, and calls oppressive regimes to account (by writting letters).

We yearn for a world in which every person enjoys the freedom of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

This year our play is about the Practice of Vidomegon in Benin. Doxa, one of my students in Year 9, has written a wonderful play script about the Vidomegon problem in Rep of Benin which I promise to put on the blog next time.

Poor, rural families in Benin and elsewhere in Africa often engage in vidomegon, a social practice whereby a child, usually a daughter, is sent to live as a servant with a wealthier family. 

The practice has fallen into the realm of child traffickers, who go from village to village to collect children and sell them to other nations. Benin has become a supplier of illicit child labour. 

The students and I want our cry, STOP THE PRACTICE OF VIDOMEGON NOW, to be heard all over the world.

Through our plays and stories, we hope that our voices will become a worldwide chorus.

"La persistance du phénomène Vidomègon: Les droits des enfants toujours bafoués en dépit des efforts consentis. 

Dètondji Déguénon est originaire de la région d’Agonlin, et âgée de dix ans à peine. Mais, la voilà depuis confrontée à tous les travaux domestiques, voire plus à Cotonou chez sa tutrice, une fonctionnaire du même village qu’elle à qui elle a été confiée depuis environ trois ans par ses parents. 

Chétive, Dètondji Déguénon, toujours habillée en haillons est la première à se lever et souvent la dernière à se coucher. Elle a le devoir tous les jours de balayer la cour, la devanture de la maison, de faire la vaisselle, la lessive." (laraignee.org: http://www.laraignee.org/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=6944)

The students and I called an urgent action to encourage people around the world to send letters and emails to President Yayi Boni who has the power to intervene and stop the practice of Videmegon in Rep of Benin. 

We must stop children abuses, we must stop the practice of Vidomegon in Benin!