Protecting the Nigerian child from abuse
The prestige and respect any country enjoys depends on how its vulnerable population, especially children is treated. Unfortunately, the majority of Nigerian children cannot be said to be enjoying the best of protection from the society. One does not have to look far to reveal the inhuman conditions many of them are exposed to on daily basis. In our cities and towns, many of these children could be seen meandering in between vehicular traffic on busy streets and roads, trying to hawk petty wares. Unfortunately, in the process some of them are knocked or even crushed by moving vehicles. Many others work as beggars, shoe shiners, car washers, scavengers and bus conductors.
Today, many Nigerian children have become breadwinners of their respective families. Due to poverty, many parents and guardians are finding it difficult to fend for their families more less sending the children to school. The statistics of Nigerian children out of school is very scary. According to the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), Nigeria is among the top list of countries with the highest numbers of children out of school. These children represent the face of hunger, insecurity and social neglect.
The plight of Nigerian children is even more depressing when survey is carried out across the geopolitical zones. Among them are two categories of children. There are those who live and work on the streets and those who return to their homes at night after working on the streets. Even when the point of demarcation is nebulous, both categories of children meet and interact on the streets, thereby making it easier for them to graduate into society miscreants over time.
Rather than abate, the situation is growing worse due to the persisting social climate of poverty and corruption at all levels of government. This social malaise is more profound in many ways. One distinct manifestation is the “Almajiri’ syndrome in the northern part of the country, which is an Islamic education that encourages young boys mostly in tattered apparels and bowls begging from house to house in order to survive.
In the south, they are mostly street urchins known as “Area Boys” who use persuasive and often coercive tactics to demand for money and are often involved petty and sometimes violent crimes.
Another cause of delinquent children is the cult of child witches, especially in some states of the South -South region. Their plight is exacerbated by ignorance of parents who are persuaded by religious ministers and even native doctors to abandon their children who are often branded witches and accused of bringing misfortunes to the family. In the end, these children are unprotected from extremes of weather conditions and exposed to various forms of abuses such as sexual exploitation, vagrancy and kidnapping.
It is therefore imperative that the authorities enforce the Child Rights Act 2003, which is a legal document that sets out the rights and responsibilities of the Nigerian child and provides for a system of child justice administration. Sadly, only 16 out of the 36 states of the federation have adopted the Act. We call on those states yet to adopt the Act to do so in order to protect our children from exploitation and deprivation. This way, they can join their peers in other parts of the world to enjoy a brighter future.
