Sudanese Orphans Finally Make Way to Canada
3 min read| 25/08/2011 – Two Sudanese orphans have finally been allowed to come to Canada to live with their aunt after almost three years of struggle to bring them here on her part, and much hardship on theirs. |
Two orphaned children from South Sudan have finally been reunited with their aunt in Winnipeg.
Elizabeth Alija, the aunt of the two boys, aged seven and 13, is a refugee from Sudan who has raised her own children as well as children from her extended family.
The two boys have been orphaned since 2008, when their father died of a fever in Juba. Thomas is 13 and Dennis is seven.
Juba is the capital of the fledgling nation of South Sudan, which received its independence last month and became the world’s newest nation state.
Ms. Alija is a health care aid in Winnipeg and a Canadian citizen. When her brother died, she went back to Sudan to arrange a caregiver the children, costing $100 per month, until she could sponsor the orphaned boys.
But before the year was up, she discovered that the caregiver was neglecting her nephews. Not only were they not receiving adequate care, but they weren’t attending school and had been forced into child labour, hauling water. Their state of health was poor, as the two suffered from malnutrition and had no access to medical care.
While she was able to find the boys better care closer to the Kenyan border, Ms. Alija ran up against other obstacles. Her bid to bring the boys to Canada was help up by Canadian officials in Cairo and Nairobi, said an official with a local Mennonite Church, who helped to resolve the hold-up. Officials from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration in Ottawa and Winnipeg, as well as an Assistant Deputy Minister, also put in an effort to help the family.
The political situation in the country likely did not help. At the time, South Sudanese people were preparing to vote on whether or not they would seek independence and secede from the northern part of the country and the Khartoum government.
After a breakthrough more than two years later, when Ms. Alija was at last able to fly to Nairobi to collect the boys, she encountered yet another barrier. The officials would not let her take the boys out of the country unless she paid a bribe of $200.
Emptying her emergency funds into their hands, she was finally able to take her nephews home.
The boys are reportedly excited to be starting school.
"We need education," said Dennis, who hopes to grow up and be a pilot. His brother, Thomas, wants to be an engineer.
There are about 1.7 million orphaned children living in the Sudans, accounting for approximately 10 per cent of the country’s population. Poverty is rife, with over 90 per cent of the population living below the poverty line on less than $1 per day.
In May of this year, Regina Oassa Lullo, the Government of South Sudan’s Director of Child Welfare, condemned the problem of child labour in the country. The Child Welfare unit is part of the Department of Gender, Child and Social Welfare. At the time, Ms. Lullo warned that child labour is a key issue keeping children out of school.
In 2009, South Sudan signed a memorandum with the International Labour Organization to identify and discourage child labour in an effort to keep children in school. The memo was signed by Ms. Lullo’s ministry and by education and labour officials.
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