{"id":6752,"date":"2019-11-25T07:56:35","date_gmt":"2019-11-25T04:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=6752"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:42","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:42","slug":"there-are-still-huge-gaps-in-nigerias-efforts-to-protect-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/11\/25\/there-are-still-huge-gaps-in-nigerias-efforts-to-protect-children\/","title":{"rendered":"There Are Still Huge Gaps In Nigeria\u2019s Efforts To Protect Children"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By Daniel Ogunniyi<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is 30 years since countries across the world adopted the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ohchr.org\/documents\/professionalinterest\/crc.pdf\">UN Convention on the Rights of the <\/a>Child. Yet, to date, the terms it sets out to protect children remain far from reality in many countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is true in\nNigeria too, even though its federal government&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/treaties.un.org\/Pages\/ViewDetails.aspx?src=IND&amp;mtdsg_no=IV-11&amp;chapter=4&amp;lang=en\">ratified<\/a>&nbsp;the\nconvention in 1991.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After years of\ncomplex negotiations, Nigeria&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20171107032017\/http:\/unveilingafrica.org\/2015\/08\/20\/child-rights-act-2003\/\">passed\na new law<\/a>&nbsp;\u2013 the Child Rights Act \u2013 16 years ago. The law was designed\nto bring the country into line with the provisions of the convention. The act\ndeals with a range of threats that children might face. This includes child\nlabour and other forms of exploitative practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nigeria has also\npassed other non-specific child laws that protect children. These include\nthe&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ilo.org\/dyn\/natlex\/natlex4.detail?p_lang=en&amp;p_isn=42156&amp;p_country=NGA&amp;p_count=253\">Labour\nAct<\/a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.refworld.org\/cgi-bin\/texis\/vtx\/rwmain\/opendocpdf.pdf?reldoc=y&amp;docid=54f98a284\">Trafficking\nAct<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Despite these\nadditional statutes, huge gaps remain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The biggest is that\nthe Convention on the Rights of the Child incorporated through the Child Rights\nAct does not apply across the country, only 25 states have adopted the Act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The reason for this\nis that Nigeria is a federation comprising 36 legally equal states and the\nFederal Capital Territory. Each state has an independent legislature. Certain\nlaws, including those that pertain to children\u2019s rights \u2013 even after they\u2019ve\nbeen passed by the federal government \u2013 don\u2019t become effective until they\u2019ve\nbeen adopted by the lawmakers in each state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The reason for the\nhold up in the 11 states is that they disagree with provisions in the act which\nthey argue are in conflict with religious and cultural norms. All 11 states are\nin the northern part of Nigeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/there-are-still-huge-gaps-in-nigerias-efforts-to-protect-children-127031\">Read\nmore\u2026<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Daniel Ogunniyi It is 30 years since countries across the world adopted the&nbsp;UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet, to date, the terms it sets out to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}