Tomorrow November 20, the world will celebrate 20 years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. For many in Nigeria, it is an opportunity to look at the states that have passed the law protecting children and the level of implementation of the act. However, according to THISDAY investigation, in as much as some states have passed the Act, a lot is still need to be done to liberate the Nigerian child. ROLAND OGBONNAYA writes
Ifeoma (not her real name) is a 10-year old girl. She leaves with her aunty on Asata Street, Enugu. This Thursday morning, Ifeoma should be in school like her other peers. No, instead, she was hawking Okpa, a local delicacy in one of the motor parks in the city. She told THISDAY that she has never been to school before even though she would have loved to go to school. She said she lost her father very early in life and things were not easy for her mother who looks after her other siblings in a village near Nsukka, hence she had to leave with her aunty. She said the arrangement between her mother and the aunty before she came to the town was that she would go to school while assisting the mother’s sister to look after the children.
But this morning, instead of being in school, Ifeoma sweats under the heaviness a tray-full of Okpa delicately balanced on her head as she hawked the food around the major motor parks in the Coal City. She still believes that one day she would go to school and become an actress like her idol Genevieve Nnaji.
The case of little Miss Rose Otubo, an eleven-year-old teenage girl is more pathetic. Rose who is from Effum in Ohaukwu Local government Area of Ebonyi State was sentenced to seven years imprisonment by a Magistrate Court sitting in Effium. Her sentence, for many epitomised how subtle and cruel the country’s legal system is against the rights of the child.
Rose ordeal came to the open when the wife of the Ebonyi State Governor, Mrs. Josephine Elechi visited Abakaliki Prisons. In one of her visits to the prison, the woman was alarmed that an 11-year-old girl was sentenced to seven years imprisonment and put in prison instead of a remand home. She immediately drew the attention of the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development.
Narrating her story Rose said, “the incident began in 2007, when I was taken to a distant cousin, one Mr. Nicholas Otubo by the man who claimed to be my father Mr. Nweke Nwochi when I was just 11 years old on the excuse that I was very stubborn”. According to her, “few months later, my foster mother accused me of stealing her N10, 000 and I was immediately dragged to an Effium Magistrate Court in Ohaukwu Local Government Area, which at the end sentenced me to seven years imprisonment.”
Rose stated said at the Magistrate Court, the charges against her were not properly explained before she pleaded guilty, adding that she only took her foster mother’s N200 to buy a loaf of bread as she was being starved even in the face of tedious day-to-day hawking. There are many children like Ifeoma and Rose who are daily abused by biological or foster parents across the country despite an existing law protecting Nigerian children from such inhuman treatment.
There has been a very serious neglect of the rights of the child in every aspect in the country even from the judiciary. Many children have been sentenced to prison without due respect to the fundamental human rights and the convention on the rights of the child like in the case of Rose.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted and ratified by nations, including Nigeria and accession by General Assembly resolution 44/25 of November 20, 1989. Exactly 20 years ago tomorrow, countries present at the Convention, agreed that in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.
Bearing in mind that the people of the United Nations have, in the Charter, reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights and in the dignity and worth of the human person, and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom. Recognising that the United Nations has, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the International Covenants on Human Rights, proclaimed and agreed that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth therein, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status,
Recalling that, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations proclaimed that childhood is entitled to special care and assistance, and convinced that the family, as the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children, should be afforded the necessary protection and assistance so that it can fully assume its responsibilities within the community. It also recognised that the child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding.
In order to protect the rights of children some states passed the Child’s Rights Law. While some states went ahead to put structures in place for the implementation of the law, many other states in the country have not deem it fit to push for the passage of the act, despite local and international pressures. Last week, THISDAY visited four states in the south east of Nigeria—Enugu, Ebonyi, Abia and Imo to assess their performance in respect of the law. Enugu State House of Assembly passed the bill, but has not been signed into law by Governor Sullivan Chime on the excuse that he does not want to sign any law that will be difficult to implement.
He implored the assembly to look at the document once again. THISDAY was at the office of the Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, Mr. Chuks Ugwoke for explanation the position of the bill, but was told he was away on official assignment. Same brickwall was met at the office of the state Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice.
Apart from Enugu, Imo and Abia States have passed the act through their state House of Assemblies, and are at different levels of implementation. While there is the zeal by the Abia State government to implement the act by setting up the family court and other structures, there is apathy on the side of the law enforcement agencies and other allied government bodies to make the law work. Ebonyi State, which bears the burden of child trafficking, street hawking by children are yet to pass the act.
THISDAY gathered in Abakaliki that the state House of Assembly passed the bill but was not accented to by the former governor and present Minister of Education, Dr. Sam Egwu before he left office. The present governor, Mr. Martin Elechi, on his part said he would not sign a law that was passed by an Assembly other than the one during his administration. As a result, the bill has been returned to the state house of Assembly for fine-tuning and would soon be passed into law, according to sources at the state house of assembly. The unfortunate thing is that while the legislators battle with the fine-tuning of the bill, many children of Ebonyi are trafficked and abused.
In Imo State, the State Assembly passed the bill in 2004 as Law No 6, which was meant to provide for children in the state and the implementation has been zero due to government’s law of direction, understanding of the law and the political will to implement it. At major markets and motor parks in Owerri, the state capital, children are used as hawkers while child labour is rampant. Abia’s case is not too different despite giant strides made.
Speaking at the opening of the 2009/2010 legal year in Umuahia, the Abia State Chief Judge, Hon. Justice S.E. Imo, confirmed that though Abia is one of the states in the country to pass the Child’s Rights Law, the benefit to the child offender derivable from the law cannot be enjoyed without a good remand home facility. “We also have a juvenile court where persons under the child rights law are tried, but unfortunately, children who are tried under this law or even in the regular court, are remanded in prison custody with adults. This should not be so,” Imo said.
The chief judge said it is very necessary and urgent that the government provides a remand home so that these children could be reformed rather than ruined, while in custody with adult criminals. “I am told there is an old remand home in Aba that only requires renovation and refurbishing. The governor may direct that the place be rehabilitated soonest,” he said.
The Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs. Salamatu Hussein Suleiman, in a meeting with women, children and other vulnerable groups in Umuahia recently, expressed happiness that Abia is one of the 22 states that have passed the child rights law. She further commended the state for putting in place implementation mechanisms for effective implementation of the law, like the implementation committee put in place as well as a family court, a prerequisite for the implementation of the law.
Her wish was that with the passage of the law and its subsequent implementation, the state would guarantee the rights of children, restore their confidence and self esteem and improve their status.” It will enable children, including those with special needs to enjoy rights to survival, development, protection and participation, as it provides special measures for their care and protection.
“I wish to implore you to continue to support and explore all necessary strategies, structures and mechanisms to further implement the provisions of the law, especially the allocation of adequate and sufficient resources for the implementation of the law. Strategies that would ensure widespread awareness of the law should be vigorously pursued as well as capacity building of the judiciary to effectively enforce the provisions of the law in the interest of the children of this great state,” Mrs. Suleiman said.
The clamour for the speedy passage of the Child Right Act became very paramount in different parts of the country with an onerous task on the different State Houses of Assembly to initiate the bill not just as an act of making law, but also as a matter of saving the Nigerian children. Considering the vulnerability of Nigerian child and in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the charter of the United Nations, recognising the inherent dignity and of the equal rights of all members of human family especially the women and children, the call for the right of child became more appealing, yet inevitable.
The heart warming call for the child right act and the need to extend particular care to the child was first stated in the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1924 and in the Declaration of the rights of the child adopted by the General Assembly on November 20, 1959, which was subsequently recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. UNICEF and other bodies like USAID have been at the vanguard for the law to be passed to give the Child Rights act a legal frame work as well as to reduce the incessant abuses on the Nigerian Child.
In Ebonyi State, for example, before the advent of the missionaries who preached against the killing of twins, it was predominantly seen in Abakaliki and other parts of Ebonyi State that the obsolete tradition almost remained indelible as some of the people, especially those in the rural area still held tenacious to that tradition.
In a bid to nip the cancer on the bud and other violence against children, the Ebonyi State House of Assembly embraced without any hesitation and expeditiously passed the bill into law, thereby establishing the Child Right Act as a law binding on every parents and guardians on the need to protect the vulnerable children. Unfortunately the former governor, Dr. Sam Egwu, did not accent to the law. His predecessor, Martins Elechi refused to sign the law because “I cannot sign any law that an assembly that is not within my tenure passed.” Meanwhile, the law has been sent back to the Assembly for “fine-tuning.” Before the attempt to pass the law, Ebonyi was a fertile place where child abuse reigned, ranging from sexual abuse on the children, child trafficking, street hawking and more especially taking away to other parts of the country as maids where they are often exposed to other different dangers.
Going by the Declaration of Geneva Convention on the Rights of the Child, there was a clear case of defiance from the fundamental human rights in Ebonyi State then often precipitated and by lack of education and civilisation, yet there was a clear number of children regularly whisked away to other parts of the state on child trafficking.
There were agents whose job was to get the children out from their parents with mouth-watering promises that the children were going to drink from the chalice of qualitative education, which apparently, their parents were not able to afford, only to be subjected to street hawking and nursing babies at home. Early this year, the men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense (NSDC) intercepted a truck-full of children of different sex, colour and ages. The agents were trying to ship these children outside the state for possible delivery to their different buyers.
That was the situation of the children in Ebonyi state and still remain the problem of the Nigerian Child in some of the states that have not passed the Child Right Act into law to establish that it is now an offence that a child under your care has no access to freedom and education.
Any state like Ebonyi that has not passed the child right act into law stands the chance of having some obligation to protect the child from all forms of maltreatments by parents or others responsible for the care of the child and establish the appropriate social programmes for the prevention of abuse and the treatment of the victims.
In accordance with the states’ obligations to the children, the state is obliged to provide special protection for the child deprived of the family environment and to ensure that the appropriate alternative family institutional placement is available in such cases considering the child’s cultural background. The westernisation of Christianity on their own side is not helping matters with their demon crazy Christianity where children are subjected to different kinds of torture often come from allegation that they are witches and wizards. They are subjected to physical and mental torture to cast out the witchcraft or wizardry in them.
Based on the Convention on the Right of the Child adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nation on November 20, 1989, “no child shall be subjected to torture, or cruel treatment or punishment, unlawful arrest or deprivation of liberty. Both capital punishment and life imprisonment without the possibility of release are prohibited for offences by person below 18 years”
According to UNICEF A Field, Mrs. Pelucy Ntabirweki, children all over the world are subjected to different inhuman treatments with 60 per cent coming as a result of religious fanatism and fundamentalism like accusing a child of witchcraft.
Mrs. Ntabirweki also during one of her numerous visits to the wife of Ebonyi State Governor, Chief Mrs. Josephine Elechi said children are the nucleus of “our cosmological existence and therefore deserved to be taken care of through protection and by giving them a bright future. The UNICEF boss also said that any society that takes the children’s future and rights like child’s play always find themselves at the dungeon of chaos and anarchy, adding that children are the fruit from the Lord.
“The child has the right to protection from all forms of exploitation be it sexual prejudicial to any aspects of the child and the state has the obligation to have the rights of the child protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous to interfere with the child’s education and so on,” she said.
In one of the resolutions made at both the Geneva Declaration and the Convention of the rights of the child, it frowned at the way and manner children are being exposed to dangers and all sorts of subjugation. It took the quick intervention of the Federation of International Women Lawyers (FIDA) and the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development following the directive of the Wife of the Governor, Mrs. Elechi to ensure the release of the teenage girl who was languishing at the Abakaliki Prison for over one year.
According to the Probation Officer, Child Development Department of the Women Affairs Ministry, Mr. Innocent Aloke, there was a petition to the Registrar of the State High Court concerning little Miss Rose’s case. “After failing in our effort to include Rose in the Governor’s amnesty list in 2007, FIDA and the state Ministry of Women Affairs appealed against the judgment of the Magistrate Court. At the end of the legal procedure, little Miss Rose was discharged and acquitted few weeks ago.”
After listening to both parties in a long argument, a representative of FIDA, Ebonyi state in the case, Mrs. Nnenna Onuoha agreed with the Women Affairs Ministry that Mrs. Obaji should take custody of Rose, since Mr. Nwochi did not visit the girl through out her stay in Prison and the remand home. These and more were some of the problems the children are being subjected to most of them often come through a broken family where the parents of the child are separated with a problem of who is going to keep the child just as it was in the case of little Rose.
In an interview with THISDAY, the newly sworn in Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development in Ebonyi State, Dr. Nora Alo said the state government was committed to protecting the rights of the children and indeed the women in the state, adding that several programmes were being introduced to that effect. She stated that under her administration. It would be unthinkable for anybody to engage in child labour and trafficking as was the case in the past as the state government would always try to abide by the law already passed by the state House of Assembly. How far this assertion could go is better left in the hands of time.
In many states particularly in the north, girls are denied education on the basis of sex. Parents, who do this claim that women have been naturally assigned the responsibility of taking care of homes. Where is it written that women must be treated as second-class citizens? Nigeria ratified the United Nations Child Rights Convention in 1991 and later passed it into law as the Child Rights Act. Since then, 22 states have adopted or adapted the Act but the implementation has continued to be a problem.
Article 27 of the Child Rights Convention says children have right to a standard of living that is good to meet their physical and mental needs while article 28 provides that children have right to education just as primary education should be free. In the HIV/AIDS ravaged states, no policy has been set out to take care of the children, who have lost their parents. What we see is that such children are put in orphanage homes and trained in the primary schools. Of what burden would it be to the government to train orphans up to university level?
In some cases, government officials like Abia State say there is no money but a lot of them keep cars that are not used for weeks or acquire houses nobody leaves in them. These days, in the streets of Umuahia and Aba and other satellite towns, juveniles are seen driving cars in the name of rich parents. Due to over-pampering, such children engage in cult activities because they call themselves "big boys". Kidnappers target children of the well to do so as to be given ransom. Child trafficking is a common feature in Abia, Imo, Enugu and Ebonyi States because some parents believe that they have to trade with them.
One prays and very fast too that the states that have not passed the law find the political will and courage to do that as well as implement it, while states like Ebonyi that has not passed it hast the pace to save children of the state from torture and abuse.
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