The House of Representatives at its plenary session on Tuesday, 22nd May 2018 urged the Ministries of Women Affairs, Labour & Productivity to put modalities in place to curb the high rate of child abuse in Nigeria. This was following a motion on the need to reduce the increasing rate of child labour, molestation and abuse in Nigeria.
Presenting the motion on the floor of the House, Hon. Omosede Igbinedion (PDP: Edo) stated that the Child Rights Act passed by the National Assembly highlighted the Legislature’s commitment to work with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to combat child labour in Nigeria. However, she expressed concern over the implementation of the Act as she referred to a recent data published by the National Bureau of Statistics that indicated that 50.8% of Nigerian children, aged between 5 and 17 were engaged in child labour.
Speaking further, she explained that child labour entails work that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children and which often deprive them of the opportunity to access education. She also enumerated on the other dangers of child labour such as its adverse effect in stunting the general development in children particularly where they are forced to engage in physical work beyond their tender bodies. She added that many children dependent on the care of adults often ended up being sexually molested and maltreated in ways that were out rightly inhumane.
Hon Igbinedion also decried the fact that there had been no improvement in the survey taken by the National Population Commission in 2014, which showed that 6 out of every 10 Nigerian children have experienced some form of violence and that 50% of Nigerian children have experienced physical violence. She also urged action from lawmakers by recalling a recent case against a school supervisor accused of sexually molesting a two-year-old child in Lagos and explained that this was the best time to declare a state of emergency against all forms of child abuse in Nigeria. The Lawmaker also emphasis the provisions of Section 14 (1) (b) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) which states that, “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government”.
In addition to its earlier resolution, the House mandated its Committees on Women Affairs and Social Development, Human Rights and Labour Employment and Productivity to enlighten the Public on the importance of bringing the incidents of child molestation and abuse to the notice of relevant authorities. The said Committees were also directed to investigate the frequency in the reportage of child abuse and are expected to reflect it in their report back to the House within two (2) weeks.
