Abuja — UNITED Nations Children's Funds (UNICEF) has lamented the fate of children in the country, stating that the only genuine way of showing commitment towards their protection was passing into law, the Child Right Bill by the various State governments.

The UN organ while disclosing this expressed worry over delay by states government's to pass the Child's Right Acts into law and were merely paying lip service to it.

A Communication Officer with the international organisation in the vanguard of the development of children, Mr. Jeffery Njoku, made the comment at the First African Children and Youth Multimedia Conference organized Children and Young Persons Development Centre' (CYPDC) in collaboration with UNICEF with a theme 'Multimedia: A Tool for Advancing the Development and Empowerment of Future Leaders' in Abuja on Thursday.

Njoku said that it had become necessary to call attention to the need to approach the issue of the passing of the Child Rights Law because it was one of the major parameters to monitor the level of friendliness of a particular environment to children.

Njoku who lamented that since the Child Rights Bill was passed by the National Assembly in 2003, only 21 states out of 36 have ensured that it was passed urged state governments in Nigeria to adopt a more serious approach to the defence of the rights of the Nigerian child.

While urging the 15 states which have not passed the law to give it the deserved attention and make the requisite contributions to put a law in place to check inimical acts against children, he insisted that the desired protection of the right of children in the society would be better realized with a legislative framework supporting those rights.

He said, "The barometer to measure how child-friendly a state or society is the number of states that have passed Child's Right Act. So far, only 21 states have passed the child rights law. So we still have 15 yet to pass it."

Njoku who commended some of the states who according to him had taken steps to put necessary structures on the ground to prevent abuses committed against children urged that the level of implementation be improved as passing into law does not end without implementation. He stated, for instance, that with such laws in existence the authorities could commence the process of arresting children roaming the streets to hawk during schools hours and impose fines on their parents.

In her remarks, the Executive Director of CYPDC, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Mrs. Nkem Oselloka Orakwue, said that the conference which was put up to train children to "a level of dissemination of information and advocacy on the right of the child" was to mark the 20th anniversary of the convention of the right of the child.

She said the workshop would help enlighten the children of their rights as well ensure that they become the defenders of their rights rather than wait for adults to defend these rights for them.

Mrs. Orakwue noted that media are critical to the workshop in the sense that they are the people who would assist in the dissemination of inform to the children as well as helping to educate them on what their rights are, by informing the public when these rights have been trampled upon by any person or individuals.

She enjoined the media to put the issue that concerns children in the front burner in order to ensure that rights of the children are realized in the country. he workshop is for children drawn from all the thirty-six states of the federation including Abuja.