“We are guilty of many errors and many faults but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need could wait — the child cannot”
—Chilean poet-diplomat, educator and humanist, Lucila Godoy Alcayaga, known by her pseudonym, Gabriela Mistral.
June 16 every year has been observed as the International Day of the African Child since 1991 as prescribed by the Organisation of African Unity now known as African Union. The day aims at raising awareness about the condition of African children and how there is an urgent need to provide them with a better standard of living. The day commemorates hundreds of children murdered by the apartheid regime in South Africa on June 16, 1976, during the Soweto Uprising. The theme for this year’s International Day of the African Child 2019 was ‘Humanitarian Action in Africa: Children’s Rights First’.
The International Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted on November 20, 1989 by the UN General Assembly, and was ratified by 194 state parties, except Somalia. It covers civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, thus underscoring the indivisibility and equal importance of all rights. Nigeria adopted the Child Rights Act in 2003 to domesticate the CRC. This Act covers every aspect of the lives of children and adolescents. They are broken down into the following: survival rights, development rights, participation rights, and protection rights.
Twenty-eight years since Africa started to commemorate the International Day of the African Child, how has African nay Nigerian children fared? How many of the rights of African children are respected by political authorities and even parents? What is the impact of corruption on African children?
Statistics on the well-being of Nigerian children are very deplorable. An estimated 13.5 million of them are out of school according to the Executive Secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission, Hammid Bobboyi. Nigeria thus has the largest number of out-of-school children in the world according to a July 25, 2017 BBC report quoting the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Adamu Hussaini. According to an online source, World Atlas, “Nigeria’s infant mortality rate is unfortunately among the world’s top 10 highest, with around 69.8 infant deaths per 1,000 births. In 2016, it was estimated that 10% of all newborn deaths in the world happened in Nigeria. In Nigeria, many pregnant women do not have access to quality, affordable healthcare. As a result, preventable illnesses like diarrhoea and pneumonia claim the lives of many.” Nigeria together with Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only three countries in which polio has not successfully been stopped.
Nigeria also has an intolerable level of child abduction or kidnapping, child exploitation, child molestation, child prostitution, child soldiering, drug abuse among children and other forms of child abuses. This is despite the passage of the Child Rights Act since 2003. Only about 25 states have passed the Act with the following 11 northern states yet to do so: Bauchi, Yobe, Kano, Sokoto, Adamawa, Borno, Zamfara, Gombe, Katsina, Kebbi, and Jigawa.
As I write this, many Nigerian children are being farmed and sold off by some unscrupulous merchants. This is most common in South-East Nigeria where teenage girls are housed by baroness and got them impregnated by young men for the single purpose of selling off the children born under such a circumstance to needy buyers. Many of such rackets have been burst by men of the Nigeria Police and other security agents. There are also increasing cases of child theft where some people scout for children to steal and sell. This happens mostly in hospitals, maternity centres and religious houses with many unwary mothers falling victim.
Child marriage is also very common in Northern Nigeria. This, perhaps, is the main reason many of the states in that part of the country have not passed the Child Rights Act after 16 years of its passage at the federal level. In fact, children less than 18 years of age are frequently married off to suitors among northerners. This often results into child pregnancy which is a major cause of Vesico Vaginal Fistula, or VVF, which is an abnormal fistulous tract extending between the bladder and the vagina that allows the continuous involuntary discharge of urine into the vaginal vault.
Regrettably, Nigerian children are also being used as suicide bombers by Boko Haram insurgents in the North-East while some of them are also recruited as Civilian Joint Task Force by the states. Just last month, nearly 900 children, including some as young as 13, were freed by a pro-government militia fighting against Boko Haram insurgents, according to UNICEF. The Guardian of London reported that “More than 1,700 children have now been released by (the) Civilian Joint Task Force, a local militia that works closely with the military to fight Boko Haram and signed a commitment to end the recruitment and use of children in 2017. Non-state armed groups embroiled in the decade-long conflict against Boko Haram recruited more than 3,500 children between 2013 and 2017 in Nigeria’s north-east, according to UNICEF.”
There is also a major crisis of child neglect as parents engage in a rat race to fend for the family. Many children are left in the custody of caregivers some of whom are family members and who end up molesting them sexually. There are several news reports of pedophiles who take advantage of the carefree attitude of some parents to abuse their children. Many home helps also engage in child-bullying knowing full well that they are acting in-loco-parentis as many parents go In search of daily bread from dawn to dusk.
What is the role of corruption in the various child abuses enumerated above? A lot! Corruption is the major reason there are no enough schools and facilities to cater to children of school age. Corruption is largely responsible for lack of hospitals or medical supplies and equipment to treat children who are sick thereby causing high infant mortality. The diversion of public resources to private use negatively affects child welfare services.
It has also been reported that child adoption processes are sometimes short-circuited by some unscrupulous social workers in charge of such an arrangement. Oftentimes, once they have been financially induced, they compromise by not adhering to laid-down conditions for child adoption. Many children who are forced into child labour to hawk, work as home helps, farm labourers or prostitutes are not allowed to feed from their sweat. Their incomes are often taken from them by their parents and or guardians. This is child exploitation!
It is imperative for government and parents to turn a new leaf and cater to the well-being of the children. States yet to pass the Child Rights Act should do so without further delay. Those who have passed the Act should implement it to the letter. There is a need to curb banditry, insurgency, kidnapping and other acts of crimes and criminality as children and women are usually the main victims of such acts of insecurity. Parents should rise to their role by fending for the needs of their children so that they will not grow up to be wayward and become monsters that will turn around to pose a threat to the peace of the society. Child spacing and family planning have become imperative so that parents don’t continue to bring forth children they cannot cater to. Above all, there is a need to fight corruption to a standstill so that our children, who are our future, can live a decent life that will propel them to be better future leaders.
Follow me on Twitter @jideojong
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