Rasak Musbau
Universally, children represent the future, and ensuring their healthy growth and development ought to be a prime concern of all. A working child protection system is unarguably a prerequisite for any nation aspiring for growth and development. Planning for development without a set of laws, policies, regulations and services across social sectors could only amount to a futile exercise.
It is a fact that nations that experience prosperity are where family stability is jealously guided. To achieve global development goals, Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child provides for the protection of children in and out of the home. Similarly, Nigeria’s Child Rights Act 2003 provides for children’s rights. But the sad reality is that child right protection policy in most states and at the federal level is adequate only on paper. This explains why, in spite of being regarded as precious gifts from God and best hope for the future, children are still subjected to abuses and neglect.
In Nigeria today, fundamental rights of children are being encroached upon on a daily basis without appropriate sanction. And this is so, not because we don’t have laws and policies on child protection but due to lack of social consensus and political will to successfully implement laws and policies.
According to global survey conducted in 2012 by The Economist Intelligence Unit, Nigeria is rated as one of the worst countries in the world for children or for a child to be born. It could be heartbreaking reading about inhuman and degrading treatment being meted out to Nigerian children both at home and institutional level. In some schools, it is still usual to see children being subjected to all forms of corporal punishments.
Child abuse also occurs at homes when parents unduly yell, threaten, reject or ignore the child. It could be shocking seeing extent at which some parents rain curses on their children. Some even fail to provide basic needs, adequate food, clothing, hygiene and medical care or support for their children. All these can lead to interference with the child’s normal social or psychological development leaving the child with lifelong psychological scars.
Also, Sexual abuses, which include but not limited to child marriage is a form of child abuse that has become a scourge in our society. Cases abound where fathers, uncles, guardians, male teachers, clerics etc have sexually molested under-age girls. Some engage in child violation for ritual purposes and most time this leads to mental disorder on the part of abused child with perpetrators escaping sanction.
In the United States, there was a case of Warren Jeffs, a Christian Fundamentalist leader who was jailed for life in 2011 for taking a 12 year old as bride. In our clime, Warren Jeffs would have escaped the hand of the law. Research has found that girl children who marry before the age of 20 are more likely to report experiences of physical or sexual violence when they started living with their husbands. This could be as a result of inability to perform marital and motherhood role as desirable.
Today, we still have many children whose habitation is on the streets and since they domicile in the streets, they are generally referred to as street children. These are children that have historically been labeled and considered as delinquents, street urchin and Almajiris among others. Some of these children were driven from home because of maltreatment by mothers, step mothers, fathers, and step fathers, as a result of death of either of their parents or as a result of broken homes. These children are denied their basic rights and are exposed to physical, sexual and all sorts of harm and abuses and also live in inhumane and deleterious conditions.
The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) distinguishes between two different groups of street children based on their family situations but both have a common characteristic in that they spend their lives on the streets. The first categories are of children “on” the streets. These are children who work and maintain regular relationship with their families. The second category is of children who are “of” the streets and consider street their home. The streets are where they eat, sleep, play and make friends. Children in both categories have much in common; they have unstable emotional relationships with adult world, a negative self image, social stigma, violence, exploitation and uncertain futures. In other words, street children suffer physical abuse, psychological abuse, neglect and often sexual abuse.
The increasing spate of child abuse with its attendant consequences therefore calls for urgent assessment, prevention and mitigation in order to secure the future of Nigerian children. The truth is that our child protection system is weak and we need to strengthen it. We are all duty bound in this respect.
The change must start from home as innocent mistakes in many homes today is that of dysfunctional relationships between parents and children. Parents nowadays expect schools to do it all alone for them. The point here is that most of the problems we expect governments and others to solve for us will never be solved if at the home front we refuse to buckle –up. It is also crucial for all stakeholders in the society to understand every infringement that constitute child abuse and be involved in the effort to bring about change. It is also important for us to support our various State Child Right Protection Policies and make use of correctional centres when necessary rather than abuse our children.
On a final note, we must understand that the right of the children and their future will only be guaranteed when there is effective collaboration between the government and the populace.
.Musbau is of Features Unit, Lagos State Ministry of Information and Strategy, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos.