We Are The Children

• Stephanie Kutchen, Grade 12
• Poetry
• 2008

We are the children who were torn from our families in the dark of the night,
Denied our education, our family, our home,
Denied the right to worship,
The sanctity of life and our every right.

This, our Africa, that we have betrayed
A country scarred with wars
And stained with blood
The blood that we have shed.

We are the children recruited as slaves,
To kill, fight and die,
For adults who never tell you why,
As they steal our childhood away.

One day there will be no horrors to torment us,
Our mothers’ songs will not just be a memory.
We will remember how to play,
And they will be brought to justice.

We are the children,
And I am a child, so far from home,
I am a child with gun in my hand
I am a child who doesn’t understand.