Reginald Onuoha
28 October 2008
opinion
Since Tuesday, October 7, when the National Assembly resumed from a recess, many politically-related issues have dominated the legislature. But for non-political types like this writer who are more concerned about social issues, their interest will lie somewhere else.
While journalists have their eyes on the Freedom of Information Bill, some of us look eagerly to the consideration of the Child's Right Act.
According to the calendar of the Senate Committee on Women Affairs and Youth Development chaired by Senator Eme Ufot Ekaete, the committee, in association with UNICEF, plans to hold a one-day stakeholders' forum scheduled for Tuesday, October 28 in Abuja to take a look at the contentious Child's Right Act. The aim is to achieve a consensus on this very important law.
Since this Act was passed or rather domesticated by the National Assembly in 2003, it has not been a smooth sail for its execution or implementation. The law had to be domesticated because the bill which gave birth to it did not emanate from private members of the Nigerian society nor was it a bill initiated by elected members of our National Assembly. Rather it emanated from a convention of the United Nations.
However, since it became a part of our body of laws, it has been viewed with suspicion by some. While everyone seems to agree that there is a need for law to protect children and help them to develop and fulfill their potential, what is lacking is that there is no unanimity or a broad consensus on the content of such a law. This is to be expected. Law is not created in a vacuum. It must be located in a socio-political context.
The decision by the Senate Committee on Women Affairs and Youth Development to find a way of achieving a broad agreement on the applicability of the law in Nigeria is therefore very laudable.
Given the current travail of many of our children and the uncertain future which many of them are likely to face, something reasonable ought to be done to ensure a better present and a better future for the Nigerian child.
It is common knowledge that today, many Nigerian children who ought to be in schools acquiring knowledge or life-saving skills in vocational/ technical schools, are abused or neglected by their parents or guardians. Some of them are used for hawking, some for begging for alms to sustain themselves and their teachers, some for prostitution. Many are used for criminal activities while in some countries where some parties are in conflict, a good number of innocent children are used as child soldiers. Sexual molestation or abuse of minors is also becoming a sad reality of modern day life in Nigeria. We used to read about sexual abuse of children by elders in foreign lands. We never thought that it could become a problem in our own society.
In many parts of Nigeria, especially in the South East and South-South geopolitical zones, the unacceptable practice of using children as domestic help is commonplace. Surely, a nation like Nigeria that has an ambition to become one of the leading nations of the world in the next 12 years can not afford to treat the issues relating to its young with levity. It is the young who grow and become adults and some of them leaders of the country. If we have future leaders who are deformed from youth, then we are certain to have a deformed future.
While as I have admitted above, some find certain portions of the Child Rights Act objectionable, it is not reasonable to throw the baby away with the bad water. There is no way we can not have a law to protect the rights of children which are at present being flagrantly violated. It is comforting that some states in the southern part of the country have adopted the law with slight modifications to suit their values. It is hoped that during the stakeholders' forum, delegates will get to know that they have a right to adopt the law with modifications to suit their culture, religion or values. But not to do something to protect the Nigerian child will almost be criminal in the light of the horrendous 'war' being waged against him by elders knowingly or unknowingly.
Nigerians must be made to understand that the fact that they are biological or adopted parents or mentors of children does not mean that they own and have absolute and suffocating control over them. The children belong to them and to the Nigerian state. The state therefore has a role to play in the growth and well-rounded development of all Nigerian children.
It is expected that the 36 speakers of the state houses of assembly, state commissioners in charge of women and child affairs, attorneys-general of the various states, state chief judges, senior officials of the Women Affairs Ministry, child rights activists and other stakeholders would participate in the October 28 meeting. One sincerely hopes that uppermost on the minds of participants would be the best interest of the Nigerian child. Efforts should not be dissipated in trying to question the origin of the law. Several laws and conventions with foreign origins have been domesticated and are serving us well.
Greater energies should therefore be deployed in seeing to how the Child's Right Act can be modified and made applicable in our peculiar milieu.
I urge participants to bear in mind that some of our children who are used as domestic helps today by some unconscionable men and denied the opportunity to get formal education, are our potential Nobel Prize winners. The dirty and hungry-looking child you see on the streets begging for alms may be our potential engineer that may help us solve our electricity problem.
A law must be in place to protect that child from abuse and to insist that he achieves normal growth in order to help him fulfill his destiny.
Mr. Onuoha, a retired social welfare worker, lives at No. 28 Aladja Street, Abuja.
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I am a practicing social worker in the UK, and very much aware of the implication of having the children of our country, Nigeria, protected from abuse. I totally agree with the writer that the Children Act/Rights law should be in place to protect the future of our nation.
However, I believe that for this to take place it might be a long winded battle, as those who are meant to follow up on issues of child abuse are sometimes abusers themselves. It is even more so as generally our leaders do not seem to think of the future but seem to focus on the 'here and now'.
I will be willing to be a part of the lobby group, if called upon.
Thank you,
Jane Tate-Lebechi