Marking Children’s Day in Nigeria

The UN General Assembly recognised that children all over the world have rights that must be documented, adopted by major states, promoted, projected, as well as enforced; these were subsequently adopted in 1959 as the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which addressed the rights of children and youths under 18 years of age. In 1989, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which covers in its 54 Articles, all the rights of children, from health care to education, to freedom from exploitation and the right to hold opinion.

Subsequently, a day has been set aside every year to evaluate the progress made in the efforts to promote, protect and project the rights of children. All over the world, today, May 27, will resonate with sounds of Children’s Day celebrations.

Celebrating Children’s Day takes special forms in each member country of the United Nations. In Nigeria, school children usually troop to various stadia, public places and all over the country to engage in march past and listen to speeches from our leaders; while some establishments participate sometimes by organising parties, excursions as well as study visits for students.

Despite the fact that most member states of the UN are signatories to the Convention, the basic rights stated in therein are still being violated with impunity in countries that had adopted the convention. Children are still being openly abused and neglected, both at the family, community and governmental levels. However, Nigeria has remained faithful to the observance of the Day.

Children’s issues go far and above the celebration of Children’s Day. There is the need to look at how children have fared before and after the passage into law of the Child Rights Bill, by the National Assembly in May 2003. Nigeria, being a signatory to several international conventions on children, is obliged to take legislative, social and educative measures to further protect children from physical or mental violence, neglect or maltreat-ment while in the care of parents or guardians, employment that is likely to be hazardous to their health or that may interfere with their education and development; sexual exploitation and abuse, among others.

Children, especially girl-kids, are being discrimi-nated against in certain parts of Nigeria when it comes to education. It is disappointing that some basic rights as the right to education, health care, protection from child labour, trafficking, sexual and other forms of exploitation and drug abuse, the right to rest and leisure, play and recreation, right to a decent standard of living, right to protection) from abuse and neglect, protection from illicit transfer and illegal adoption, right to survival and develop-ment and the right to non-discrimination are hardly respected or enforced.

The economic down-turn has suddenly turned children into breadwinners for many families. They can be seen in the streets hawking all sorts of wares, with the forlorn hope of augmenting the poor earning of their financially weak parents. Street hawking has turned many kids into hopeless youths with a bleak future. The females among them are exposed at tender ages to sexual harassment and molestation. Others are some-times rendered useless or in extreme cases, lose their lives after being hit by reckless drivers.

Except on May 27, when Nigerian children are assembled for the yearly ritual called ‘Children’s Day,’ many of the children live their lives daily on the tenterhooks, after being forced into situations which they cannot escape. The Nigerian child has taken a lot of bashing and still surviving. As the economy goes steeply downwards with many parents’ dream of a better life getting dimmer, it is doubtful if the Nigerian child still has much resistance left, except, perhaps, if his plea for a better deal is revisited.

Despite the efforts of the various governments, the Universal Free Primary Education scheme of 1976, which meta-morphosed into the Universal Basic Education scheme, many school age children are still out of school. Indeed, recent statistics indicated that about 45 percent of school age-children are out of school in Nigeria. As a result, the basic right to education is denied this percentage of the country’s children from among those who could have risen as the great men and women of tomorrow’s Nigeria.

The right to survive and thrive is a big dream for many of these hapless children. It is estimated that about 25 percent of them die before they are five years of age, due mostly to avoidable causes. Indeed, statistics have it that the level of immunisation coverage for the child killer diseases that was once as high as 80 percent has dropped to as low as less than 20 percent.

In order to check abuse of the rights of children, state governments that are yet to adopt the Child Rights Act should get their legislatures to pass it into law. The federal and state governments should commence immediate enforce-ment of all the provisions of the law, including prosecuting and convicting those that flout it.

Soeze is Chief Officer (Public Affairs), Petroleum Training Institute, Effurun, Delta State.