Between February and August, there were 43,740 reported cases of violations against children. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) dashboard shows that, in these seven months, children led the tally of violated persons and women followed closely with more than 34,000 reported cases.
The highest number of violations came in June, with 16,125 cases. The data also suggests that parents were complicit in the abuse of children.
Twenty-three years after Nigeria signed the Child Rights Act into law, children remain the most frequent victims of human rights violations, according to data from the NHRC for 2024.
MONTHCHILD RIGHTS CASES JANUARYFEBRUARY550MARCH552APRIL862MAY552JUNE16,125JULY10,880AUGUST14,21943,740Reports of Child Rights Violations in Nigeria between February and August 2024. Source: NHRC Dashboard
In the eight months under review, parents ranked among the top offenders — only behind armed bandits and state actors. More than 22,550 complaints were lodged against parents, with child abandonment being the most common violation.
The National Child Labour Survey of 2022 also showed that 24 million of Nigeria’s 62.9 million children are engaged in child labour, with many forced into it.
READ ALSO: REPORT: 14 Million Nigerian Children Do Hazardous Work to Earn Daily Living
STATES’ RELUCTANCE TO ENFORCE LAWS
This disregard for children’s rights is also reflected in state legislation, as many states have been slow to adopt laws that protect them.
As of the time of this report, four states — Ekiti, Lagos, Kano and Taraba — had yet to domesticate the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) bill, according to a VAPP tracker.
This law protects women, children and vulnerable people from physical violence, gender-based violence and domestic abuse. Lagos and Ekiti are the only two states out of the four with domestic laws and agencies dedicated to protecting children from violence.
Anambra, the quickest Nigerian state to adopt the legislation, took two years before signing it into law in 2016. Other states only got on board between 2021 and 2022. Zamfara signed the law as recently as December 2023.
Similarly, despite the early introduction of the Child Rights Act in 2003, under President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, 11 states still had not domesticated it by 2020, according to a report by TheCable.
The number of compliant states remains unclear. In 2022, then Minister of Women Affairs Pauline Tallen said 34 states had domesticated the act, according to a Vanguard report. But in January, the Pediatric Association of Nigeria claimed five states — Adamawa, Bauchi, Gombe, Kano and Zamfara — had yet to adopt it per a report by The Guardian.
In May 2023, Nafisa Maradun, Zamfara’s Commissioner for Women, Children, and Social Development, stated that the state had developed a “long-term plan” to implement the act.
FUNDING GAP IN CHILD PROTECTION
Beyond the slow adoption of laws, Nigeria faces underfunding of child protection services. A 2018 report by the United National Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the federal government revealed that the country spent only 15 kobo on each child for every 100 kobo spent between 2014 and 2017.
The same report found that only 0.31% of the national budget was spent on child protection within that time frame. That was found to amount to N109.26 per child annually.
In 2023, a report covering Borno, Adamawa and Yobe found that the child protection funding gap was N19.4 million for that fiscal year alone.
READ ALSO: In Nigeria, Children Can Be Legally Jailed With Adults, but Are Too Young to School With Them
A THOUSAND AND ONE DOCUMENTED INSTANCES
FIJ has documented numerous cases of physical, emotional and sexual abuse against children. In August, for instance, FIJ reported how the Nigerian system deemed children ineligible for higher education but eligible for jail.
In August, a Federal High Court in Abuja granted police permission to remand 22 children for 60 days for participating in the protest against bad governance in Nigeria.
In May, despite ample warning, the Kaduna State government allowed the abduction of 37 children from the Kuriga community. FIJ has also reported instances of rape involving girls under age 14 in Delta and Lagos earlier this year.
The post DATA: Nigerian Parents, Culprits Commit 43,740 Child Violations — the Most — in 7 Months appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.