Abuja — Impact for Change and De-velopment, a non-governmental organisation(NGO) took the campaign against child labour to the streets of Abuja recently to drum up support for the eradication of the menace.

The campaign, which was staged in a rally made up of civil servants, representatives of United nations Organisa-tions, school children and other distinguished Nigerians was geared towards creating awareness on the ills of using under aged children for domestic labour.

Mrs. Naomi Akpan-Ita, Executive Director, Impact for Change, argues that "child labour has emerged as one of the most important issues on the global agenda with regards to the protection of the rights of the child.

"Admittedly, the subject has been contentious and a source of heated debate, but there are signs that confrontation is leading to consensus and cooperation," she said.

She noted that though arguments have been that child domestic labour was part of our culture and as such, clamouring for its eradication was being unrealistic, there was need for a review whether the extended family syndrome still serves the purpose it did two generations ago.

Akpan-Ita said the recently signed Child Rights Act (CRA) of Nigeria 2003 stipulates 18 years as the minimum age below which children should not be permitted to work. The establishment by law of a minimum age below which children should be permitted to work, she said, is and will remain one of the basic instruments to combat child labour.

The campaign, she further stated, was targeted at policy makers in general as major policy reforms would be necessary to ensure the eradication of poverty and the attendant factors, which have been adduced as reasons for the proliferation of child labour in developing countries.

For the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Repres-entative, Mac John Nwaobiala, "the time has come for us to search for alternatives to child domestic labour. For example, is it not possible for us to provide employment for the many jobless adults by hiring them as house-helps in different categories, who could come into our homes, perform specific assignments and return to their homes at the end of the day?

"In Nigeria, engaging children in domestic labour is a rampant practice which most of us are guilty of. Let us pause for a moment to picture or imagine the situation of child domestic workers in homes.

"The children work long hours with no time off, low wages or no pay at all. Their feeding is poor, they do not have legal or social protection, and they are isolated and lackopportunities for play, recreation, and leisure. Many of them do not attend school, they are lonely and isolated and are subject to verbal, physical, emotional and even sexualabuse," Nwaobiala observed. He commended the efforts of Impact, and submitted that it was only through such collaborative strategies, which were currently being worked out, that UN agencies can support research efforts that will yield data on the situation of Child Domestic Workers in Nigeria.