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At the UN special session for children last year,
its Secretary-General, Kofi Annan
submitted that no where was progress for children slower than in Africa. Just bet what is not wrong with the continent. He regretted that African leaders have continued to pay lip service to issues concerning children and that promises made to children are not being met.
Annan observed that many of the targets set at a similar meeting – the 1990 world summit on children were never met. He then cautioned: “Let us not make children pay for our failures any more… The children in this room are witnesses to our words.”
In summary, Annan said that the children and “their peers in every land have a right to expect us to turn our words into action and to build a world fit for children.”
And Gael Mbemba, a 17-year old youth from Chad in an outburst told the Presidents: “The result is not what you said… listen to the children not with your ears, but with your hearts.”
The delegates made up of some 60 heads of state and other senior government officials renewed earlier promises for dramatic improvements in 21 specific areas of child welfare. These include working towards the reduction of mortality rates of children under five years by two-thirds and an end to the worst forms” of child labour and universal basic education for the world’s children by 2015. The leaders pledged to “create a world fit for children,” even as they appealed to all and sundry to join in this global movement to protect children from poverty, war, disease and sexual and economic exploitation.
Going by the UN children’s Fund, African children have far higher mortality rates and less access to education than children in other regions of the world.
According to UNICEF report, up to a million Nigerian children are dying annually from preventable diseases, making the country the 15th highest in the world in spite of the purported advances being made in universal immunization and oral re-hydration therapy (ORT) for diarrhea.
WHO reports have it that of the 30 million children who suffer from measles yearly, 750,000 die world-wide.
Till date, AIDS has orphaned over 13 million African children and the virus infects over two million children. Half of all new infections occur among young people, which indicates the lack of education and information services that could help young people’s rights to protection and health.
Data made available by the Federal Office of Statistics have it that over 15 million of Nigerian children of school age have been found to be engaged in menial jobs. Six million drop out of school of which 3.1 million are girls and the rest, representing 49 percent are boys. 42 percent of those working who fall between five and nine years old are engaging in agriculture and hunting, while 61 percent combine schooling with working to enable them pay their fees.
The ILO 2003 report states that 146 million children are involved in child labour.
The problem of child soldier is peculiar to Africa. While the child in some countries finds himself hawking on the streets or helping in the farms, in countries ravaged by war like Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo Democratic, Somalia, Angola and also on, children are engaged as child soldiers.
However, poor health care and malnutrition were identified as key elements, which had led to persistent poverty.
Here in Nigeria, there is the general view that the nation has no business being poor. Nigeria is currently enjoying excess revenue from oil.
It is also pertinent to mention here that a whooping amount is voted for defence; though the country is not at war.
Writing on “the burden of the African child,” Mr. Tommy Ibi, a public analyst asserted that the debt burden of many African nations has taken its toll on the African child.” Further more, argued Ibi, corruption in high places, misapplication of funds and gross violation of human rights are problems. These, he said inevitably result to civil strife which have turned the African child into infants with the end result that their entire existence has been warped as they are given drugs that make them kill and main their own mothers.
Conversely, where a child has been deprived of the rights to know and be cared for by his parents, to preserve his identity, name and family relations and to a voice (in matters concerning him), this deprivation is known to have led to emotional disorders, loss of self esteem, lack of trust in others, inability to form lasting relationship, anxiety, depression, lack of parenting skills, etc.
Though all attest to the Pan-African saying which places children at the centre of development, that is, “Today’s investment in children is tomorrow’s peace, security, stability, democracy and sustainable develop,” African children have nearly been considered as a priority for international aid and development programmes.
Many parents do not blink before they ask their underaged children to go out to the streets to hawk; some are asked to go and seek livelihood outside. Ten, 15 years old boys become bus-conductors. At the end of the day, what you have are miscreants, area boys and street kids. They sleep under the bridges garages loiter around hotels and ultimately turn to crimes or end up in club houses. The girls take to prostitution, even as many of them are sexually abused, get pregnant and bring to life unwanted babies. Many are juveniles who due to various circumstances, most of the time not their own doing, have been forced to take up residence outside their parents homes, denying them of their right to protection, love, care, health, decent living, hunger, lack and want, and ultimate survival.
One form of abuse usually leads to another said Princess Olufemi-Kayode of Media Concern (MEDIACON) for women and children. She observed that most children who join cults or defiant are those who have suffered all kinds of abuses. Her words: “Child neglect is one of the greatest offence committed against the child by parents and government. Neglect could be financial and emotional. It is not just the issue of poverty. You can be poor and still love, care and meet other emotional needs of your children. What many call love today is to go out by 7a.m stay out there till 8p.m or later, while the child is left with a maid or a minder. At the end of the week, they cannot be said to have spent up to 24 hours with the child. And all of these expose the child to one form of danger or the other.”
Olufemi-Kayode noted that the issue of child sexual abuse (CSA), a situation where grown ups abuse children, even as young as a few months was a direct effect of lack of protection and so, a very painful experience.
But Mrs. Lola Alonge, programme director/coordinator of Child Health Advocacy Group insists that parents must have to create time for their children, because child neglect is at the root of social decay. “There are clear cases of misplaced priority. Many parents are preoccupied with making money, they want to have what family ‘B’ has, unbridled rivalry and competition to the detriment of the child’s total well-being.”
Everybody talks about societal degradation. The present generation of adults never fail to talk of the good up bringing they had, hence were able to imbibe high moral values. So, what has gone wrong? Why have they not been able to pass down same to their children who belong to the younger generation, which then means they have failed as parents?
The Media Concern for Women and Children noted that even in those days, not everything was right. “The values were just there and so many vices were condoned. For instances, our fathers had other women, they used to drink and smoke. When they took other women, the children of the woman in the house suffered neglect and all forms of deprivation.
“Even those who were educated had their secrets; some people only got to know that their father had children during their funerals. The sugar-daddy syndrome are they not the same people that started taking young girls out. So the seeds were sown a long time and now, we have an abundant harvest…”
Decent dressing has given way to nudity; integrity, honesty, respect, diligence are virtues which have been thrown to the dogs.”
Regrettably, said she, a lot of Nigerian leaders and parents could no longer be looked up to as role models. “The child no longer have anyone to look up t. when you are telling a child to be diligent and honest, but no sooner does he see his father go into public office and before you know it, he has acquired unimaginably property, wealth to last an entire life time when he leaves office. Our leaders are not leading by examples.”
She recalled a child who when asked what he wanted to be in life said he would like to be a policeman because he will be able to collect much money. This she said was a sad picture of the Nigerian Police.
For her, Nigerian leaders have not done enough to address problems with which the Nigerian Child is faced. She then warned: “…if we do not change our nonchalance attitude towards issues affecting the child, by focusing upon solving the lingering problems, but allow the decay to continue, we will have no future.”
Suffice to say that even though the child’s rights bill has been passed, it is yet not entrenched into the Nigerian society. President of Young Disciples International (YDI). Pastor Joe Jesmiel-Ogbe said.
Stakeholders appealed to government to go beyond the passage of the bill and cultivate the polical will to make it effective. According to Alonge, government should go further to make sure that the right of the Nigerian child is not only protected but respected.
Rather than making May 27, Children’s Day a mere funfair, government is advised to use the day as a day for stock taking, to be able to sit down and consider how far efforts at addressing problems affecting children have gone.
Alonge would prefer a situation that was beyond march past, but “…a summit, which will not be limited to Abuja. May be, held yearly at states’ and council levels to focus on the child, the problems of education, health, social welfare, etc.
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