IS NIGERIA REALLY WAGING WAR AGAINST CHILD ABUSE?
Read Time:4 Minute, 14 Second
Feature
IFE ADEWOLE
Despite Nigeria’s treaties to several Child’s rights law and Lagos state government efforts in passing an executive order on Safeguarding and Child protection policy, cases of child abuse are still very much on the rise in the country.
The gory news of sexually abused 13 year-old girl, Ochanya Ogbanje by a Benue State Polytechnic lecturer, Andrew Ogbuja and his son, Victor who started raping his wife cousin, Ogbanje, who lived with them since when she was aged 9 and eventually leads to her death at age 13, flooded the media. This implied that the senior lecturer and his son raped the innocent child for good five years before she died of Vesico-vaginal fistula (VVF) and other health complications at the Benue State Teaching Hospital on Wednesday October 24, 2018.
If not for human rights activists’ intervention, who protested and demanded for justice, the case, though still in court at the moment, would have been swept under the carpet by the Nigerian Police who had earlier arrested the culprit and cannot really explain how the man escapes from their custody.
On Tuesday October 30, the case of an Igbo woman who brutally assaulted her young maid for reasons best known to her was reported on Facebook by Cindy Precious who sympathized with the little girl, and posted pictures of bruises and severe cuts on skin of the girl. Yet one still needs to imagine the level of internal damages she might have done to her, the extent of the emotional damages cannot be estimated as well.
Reported issues of child abuses are less to be compared with those who are not reported for one reason or the other. The dilemma then is why are cases of child abuse kept increasing? If laws and conventions are not enough to curtail the catastrophe, what else can be done to protect the innocent child?
The law has three primary purposes: to incorporate the rights of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights into the national law, to provide the responsibilities of government agencies with the law and to integrate children-focused. Having all this in resonance, yet issues of child abuse happens every day at every nooks and corners of the country.
Child abuse is simply the act of inflicting emotional pain on a child by a parent or guardian; this may be through actions or inactions that may cause death or injury to a Child. A child therefore, in Nigeria is any person that is below the age of 18.
Child abuse ranges from Sexual abuse which happens when an adult uses a child for sexual purposes or involves a child in sexual acts. It also involves when an older child that is more powerful uses another child for sexual satisfaction. Emotional abuse is when a parent or guardian inflicts injuries to a child’s mental and social development. Most Childs are often abuse emotionally repeatedly due to the bullying nature of some parents and guardians.
Child neglect occurs when a parent or guardian does not give the care of affection, safety, supervision and support for a child’s health, protection and well-being to a child. Physical abuse includes striking, kicking, biting, hair pulling, choking, throwing, shoving, whipping and any other actions or unintentional actions that injure a child.
Parents and guardians should be guided about child sexual abuse which include, making a child view a sex act, fondling and oral sex, inappropriate sexual talk, contact abuse, penetration, exploitation, child prostitution and pornography. They should also wash out for the following signs in their child so as to detect if the child as being abuse, Torn, stained bloody undergarments, Bleeding, bruises, pain, swelling, itching of genital area, difficulty sitting, walking, bowel problems, frequent urinary tract infections or yeast infections.
Parents and guardians need to be aware that the act, do not implies that a child should not be corrected or discipline whenever he/she has done something wrong. Since discipline will put them in the right track. However, any discipline or correction that will inflict internal injuries, brain damage, broken bones, sprains, dislocation, lifelong injury, emotional and psychological harm and death is frantically frown at, and may land such person in jail if find guilty. Physical discipline from a parent that does not injure or impair a child is not considered abuse; also non-violent alternatives are always available.
The following rights accrue to all child, infringing on one of the rights is liable to prosecution; right to private life and family, right to freedom of association and peaceful assembly, right to survival and development, right to name, right to freedom of movement, right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, right to freedom from discrimination, right to dignity of a child, right to health and health services, right to leisure, recreation and cultural activities, rights of the unborn child to protection against harm, right to parental care, protection and maintenance, right to free compulsory and universal primary education.
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0