Parents should apologise for the 1994 Genocide as their children demanded at the last National Children’s Summit. The call was made, Sunday at Telecom House, Kigali by the Minister of Gender and Family Promotion (MIGEPROF), Jeanne d’Arc Mujawamariya, ahead of a two-day fourth National Children’s Summit starting today in Kigali.

"In the last summit, the children asked us parents to apologise to them for what happened in 1994. So, if we really apologised, we should not again plant the seeds of genocide ideology in them,” she said.

Mujawamariya was reacting to a concern raised by one of the children at a brainstorming session organised ahead of the Summit.

Chief Superintendent of Police, Emmanuel Butera, also challenged authorities at cell and village level to wake up and sensitise people on the dangers of Genocide and the genocide ideology.

Butera, explained that Police has set up anti- Crime Clubs in different schools countrywide as part of its role in fighting the Genocide ideology amongst pupils. This, he said, has reduced cases of genocide ideology tremendously.

At the same meeting, Narisis Nduwayezu, the Inspector General of Schools in the Ministry of Education, warned the children to watch out against misleading advice by some parents.

"You children are now ahead of some of your parents. So you should reason with them and refuse to take their bad ideas as long as its not in a defiant manner,” he advised. 

Morris Nsanzamahoro, 17, the Northern Province children’s representative, called upon parents to adopt the principle of ‘no scandal’ which he explained as, "What a person thinks that s/he cannot do in public, s/he should not do it in a hidden place.”

According to Esron Niyonsaba, the Technical Assistant for Orphans and Vulnerable Children, 416 sectors from all over the country are expected to be represented by a child.

"The 416 children who will attend the summit are meant to go back to their sectors and report to those children who did not attend the summit. Every child is accompanied by a government representative from the district in the office of Gender, Children and Family Promotion,” Niyonsaba responded to a question on how other children would be availed with the summit out-come.

He added that at lower levels, MIGEPROF is encouraging decentralised entities to have decentralised summits (Children’s forums) such as at District level, to allow all children to participate. 

"MIGEPROF developed guidelines for setting up and functioning of children’s forums at the decentralised level, and these would be good dialog platforms in which all children may exchange views and interact,” Niyonsaba explained, adding that it’s not only about a National Children’s Summit.

According to him, there are District, Sector, Cell and Village level children’s forums. This year’s theme which was from the children’s brainstorming after the 2007 summit, is "Children’s Role in Fighting against Genocide Ideology”.

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