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This year’s Day of the African Child was marked
on Wednesday June 16. The child is the weakest
leg of the tripod of the human nucleus of man, woman and offspring, and along with the woman forms the disadvantaged pair of the human family. From the brevity of life in the womb (otherwise known as procured abortion) to callous enslavement and torture, sometimes to the death, countless African children in many ways graphically typify the Hobbesian postulate on societal life and nature, reliving a life that is truly nasty, brutish and short. Of the many factors contributing to child trafficking, age-old customs and tradition remain enduring. With so much disease and sickness, topped by the towering HIV/AIDS epidemic threatening to raise child mortality to an unprecedented level, and with so much poverty underlying much of the suffering in our African communities, we have continued to breed societies that are at once culture bound and alien influenced.
Children are indiscriminately given away for fostering in the extended family system. Some are apprenticed to masters and abandoned to their fate. In some parts, early betrothal of underage girls and the genital mutilation of female children are a regular and acceptable practice. In recent times young girls are lured into child prostitution with the tacit knowledge and/or acceptance of poor parents. While families find parenting and economic relief from such arrangements, the effects can be profoundly traumatic for the affected children, thus making them easy prey for child traffickers.
Over time society at various levels has bred a crop of active participants in child abuse and expanded the realm of child labour practice. In the urban environment, street trading, unsecured apprenticeship, child prostitution, guides for disabled beggars and such other menial and degrading chores are common. Whether by parents, relatives, foster parents, masters and mistresses, or at the hands of organised syndicates, children of all ages come under a myriad of abuses sometimes under terribly dehumanizing conditions. All of this forms a backdrop and an enabling environment for child trafficking. Yet among these conscripts who are mostly denied the right to education are to be found children of high intellect.
Physical and sexual abuse of minors is an age long global phenomenon. In parts of AIDS ravaged Africa, virgin girls are said to be procured for HIV/AIDS patients in the mythical belief that cure can be thus obtained. Elsewhere children are regularly drafted often against their will or for economic benefit, as site workers, domestic servants, farm labourers, cottage factory hands, cooks or armsbearing soldiers in the endless wars in Africa.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) states in part: “Every child shall have the right not to be induced or coerced to engage in any unlawful sexual activity. Every child shall have the right not to be abducted or sold or used in child trafficking or child trade, armed conflict and child pornography and child prostitution.” This is a sampling of the numerous international conventions, charters, and state laws and statutes guaranteeing protection of the rights of the child. But in Africa these laws are recognised more in their breach than in their observance.
In Nigeria, the lack of adequate concern of the leadership and government’s demonstrable benign neglect of the problem has emboldened child traffickers and raised the trauma for entrapped children. Where protective laws exist our leaders have shown little heart to enforce them and little focus and determination to enact new legislation to strengthen them. The facade of governance commands greater attention.
Our governments and leadership at all levels must get out of their reactive posture on national affairs and become truly responsive to the people if we are serious about fostering a truly democratic culture. Our approach to the business of governance needs to change. From the local government closest to the people, to the states and federal governments overseeing our borders, a protective network can be woven and the right cooperation forged to ensure security for the vulnerable and weak members of society. The agencies of government such as the Customs, Immigration, Prisons and the Police need sensitising, reeducation, retraining and reorientation. Recognising that the child trafficking phenomenon in Africa is exacerbated by its socio-economic milieu overrun by acrimonious poverty, a concerned government will move to improve economic conditions and employment opportunities for the people.
Civil society on the other hand must be adequately inspired to take up the challenge of helping to eradicate the practice of child trafficking. Some nongovernmental organisations are already into the fight but so much more needs to be done to sustain and expand the effort. Programmes of sensitisation, civic education, peer group, activities at all levels and in institutions, poverty reduction initiatives, reintegration and rehabilitation count high among measures to engage the attention of civil society. The press have a crucial role in information dissemination. The exposure of the evil of child trafficking is a vital contribution the press can make towards the protection of children.
A society that recognises the primacy of human values in development takes conscious steps to invest in its young people, beginning with the children. A government that lacks coherence in planning for children and giving protection sets its nation on the course of doom. The Day of the African Child ought to mark in practical ways the celebration of the progress made in the wholesome liberation of the African child, such that over time the inalienable endowments of every child can be developed to their full potential and nurtured to maturity for national development.
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