The Children Experiencing Violence in Nigeria
In June 2022, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) released a press statementwhich investigated the increase of violence against children every day between 2016 and 2020. West and Central Africa were among the areas with the highest amount of verified grave violations, collectively with more than 67,000 violations, about a quarter of all violations globally. Major drivers to the abnormally large number of grave violations were shown to be conflict and various aspects of insecurity within these areas. Children have been the most vulnerable group to be affected by these grave violations with 391 verified cases against 306 children in Nigeria alone, a 56 percent increase from 2020.
Children living in these regions are prone to suffer from multiple acts of violence, ranging from becoming child soldiers for boys and sexual violence for girls. As an already vulnerable portion of the populations, their vulnerability increases as children are left with both physical and psychological scarring from the grave violations in these regions. Marie-Pierre Poirier, UNICEF Regional Director for West and Central Africa has stated that “behind each of the violations detailed in the report is a child, his or her family and members of a community whose lives are torn apart, sometimes forever.”
Much of these violations have been carried out by both State and non-State actors. In Nigeria, many cases of grave violations were attributed to the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Boko Haram, who are known to deliberately target vulnerable populations. Boko Haram has been known to target educational institutions, they have limited children’s access to education, abducted children, and killed students for attempting to attend these institutions.
A prominent example of this is a reporting in September 2022 that recounted that 98 out of 276 girls from the Government Girls’ Secondary School Chibok of Borno State are still in captivity of Boko Haram for over 8 years. The abduction commenced in April of 2014, when schoolgirls from nearby villages gathered to take a final exam in physics at the school were captured and held captive by the terrorist group. Over the years, Boko Haram released a majority of the girls sporadically, but the rest of the girls still remain missing, and much is unknown of their wellbeing.
Importance of Child Human Rights
The importance of children’s rights needs to be better acknowledged and understood as children are appointed the same human rights as adults. Despite being deserving of the same rights as adults, children are also deeply affected by the actions – or inactions – of state governments. Decisions made by government officials impact the entirety of one’s childhood, carrying on into their adulthood. Because of this, engagement from all parties is important to have a major impact towards the prevention and end of violence against children.
Children that are in areas of high-conflict or insecurity are left with an even greater and disproportionate impact as they themselves are still developing and therefore vulnerable to precarious living conditions that hinder their overall development. Children affected by high-intensity conflict in Nigeria become more susceptible to conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD), anxiety disorders, depression, chronic pain, fatigue, and so on.
There has been over 200,000 child rights abuse complaints in Nigeria from the National Human Rights Commission in 2020, ranging from child marriage to children abandonment. In Nigeria, children are covered by the Child’s Right Act, adopted in 2003, but 11 out of 36 Nigerian states have not domesticated the act.
Coincidentally, Borno state is the state in which the mass kidnapping of the Chibok girls occurred, is also one of five states with the highest child rights abuse complaints received by the NHRC. Borno state also does not have any protection of child rights written into law, meaning that there is no government agency that is set to oversee the affairs of children within the state. This also means that these child rights abuse complaints would not be attended to and would not be resolved by any government agency within the state.
Child’s Rights Act and Implications
The Child’s Rights Act give legal consent to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. Nigeria operates on a federal system of government, meaning that much of the law does not overarch over all its 36 states once it is accepted into law. Children rights are left up to settled individually in each of the constituent states and each state legislature needs to make the national law applicable within the state. The Child Rights Act also conflict with another Nigerian law known as the Young Person’s Act which states that a ‘young person’ is defined as a person between the ages of 14 and 17 years old whereas the Child Rights Act identified a child as being younger than 18 years old.
Because not all the Nigerian states have adopted the Child Right’s Act, the Nigerian government by default is not doing all it can to protect its’ children. Nigerian society is multi-cultural and incredibly diverse so it can be difficult to have a cordial approach towards its laws that does not disparage religious beliefs but is also in the best interest of the child. There are various reasons as to why child rights have not been domesticated into law in 11 states in Nigeria. A major factor is a difference in religious practices, along with ethnic and cultural diversity in the country. All 11 states are located in northern Nigeria, of which there is a dominance of Islam in the region. There have been many legislators in the Northern region that have portrayed that Child Right’s Right Act as being “anti-culture, anti-tradition and anti-religion.”
An example of this is the contention behind the actual definition the of a child, which varies based on the religious text that if followed by a religion. The Child Right’s Acts strictly prohibits betrothal and child marriage, which is still practiced in parts of Northern Nigeria. In Islam, puberty is utilized as a basis for a child’s readiness for marriage. As the Child’s Right Age states that under 18 years is what a child can be perceived as, this clashes with what the idea of a child is for the regions that may still practice child marriage. This difference in religious practices extends into other areas such as education.
Conclusion
Domestication of the Child Right’s Act would be a big push towards increasing child protection as well as overall reducing the risk of grave violations conducted against children. Children in Nigeria need uniform protection and it is up to Nigeria’s government to take the initiative to conform to both international and regional child protection laws to ensure unification across the country. The states that have already domesticated the Child’s Rights Act also have a hand in influencing the other 11 states to do the same and put their children, the future of the country, in their best interest.