Most countries of the world signed and ratified the United Nations Convention on Rights of the Child and have a legal obligation to work towards ensuring that all children’s rights are integrated into national law but regrettably many government policies and programmes still do not provide adequate protection for children . Across the world, most of these children are denied education, entertainment and opportunity for proper human development.
Some of them have no home at all and lack opportunities for education and care. Many of them face daily pains, abuse by adults, low life expectancy and are unable to explore their potential.
According to the UNICEF, one hundred and fifty-eight million children across the world are engaged in child labour representing one in every six children with many of them in Asia and Africa, while seventy-three million of them are less than ten years old.
Some of these children work with pesticides and chemicals in the agriculture sector, while others work with dangerous machineries that endanger their lives and UNICEF statistics show that twenty-two thousand of these children die in work related accidents every year.
In a similar vein, millions of children engaged as domestic servants, are always over burdened and most of them, especially the girls, are frequently sexually harassed, abused and exploited. Most of these children live in rural communities and urban slums where the poverty level is rather higher with little opportunity of breaking the shackle of poor standard of living.
In Nigeria, communities in most states in the Northern part of the country arc the worst hit, resulting to the challenge of the “Almajeri” syndrome, with many of them becoming ready tools for violence and bloodletting. Ebonyi and some other states in the South-South zone also have high figures of child labour.
In some communities in Anambra State, child labour has almost become part of the accepted way of daily life. Child labour is also prominent in some of the urban and semi-urban towns where children instead of being sent to school, are engaged in forced labour to generate income for their families, either by hawking wares on major highways with the risk of being run down by moving vehicles or by assisting their parents to sell in shops and markets. Some of them, who are less fortunate, are daily exposed to the harsh and degenerating life of begging by parents and guardians. That is why Governor Chukwuma Soludo’s administration should be commended for its free education policy that gives every child opportunity to acquire quality education without any financial burden.
Stakeholders should therefore ensure that children receive quality education that will positively change their mind sets and perception of life and equip them with necessary knowledge and skills to attain their full potential in life.
Children as hope for future survival of the society should be properly equipped and empowered to confront the challenges of life and living without going through dehumanizing and harrowing experience of forced Labour . There should be more proactive measures in enforcing the Child Rights Law to protect children from abuse and exploitation.
