Whipping The Child

CHILDREN are so important that it trivialises their place if the importance of their future to become subject of arcane debates linked to culture and religion.
Our children are the future of this country, everyone agrees. Why are we reluctant to give them a future? Does anyone see how their blighted future jeopardises the future of Nigeria?

The Child Rights Act, CRA, provides emphatically on the prohibition of exploitative labour, as a violation of a child’s rights. It was meant to be the cure to the maltreatment of the Nigerian child.

Section 28 states, “(1) Subject to this act, no child shall be a. subjected to any forced or exploitative labour; or b. employed to work in any capacity except where he is employed by a member of his family on light work of an agricultural, horticultural or domestic character; or c. required, in any case to lift, carry or move anything so heavy as likely to adversely affect his physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development; or d. employed as a domestic help outside his home or family environment” .

Sub-section (3) and (4), provide a fine of N50,000 or imprisonment for five years or both, while a body corporate and all its members are liable, on conviction, to a fine of N250,000.

Other unsafe practices the Act prohibits include apprenticeship, street trading, market/shop assistant, buka workers, bus conductors, motor park touts, farm work, porter, begging and betrothal.

Betrothal is described as an arrangement between the parents of a girl child and that of a boy (when the children are still infants) for a marriage between them at a future date. In Section 23, there is a fine of N500,000 or five years imprisonment for any who betroths a child.

The CRA, which the National Assembly passed in 2003, has been walking the chambers of various state Houses of Assembly since then. Abuja and 16 States have passed the bill into state laws. The law has had little true effect on child’s rights across Nigeria, due to lack of implementation.

It is one of the few laws that contradicts Section 4 (5) of the 1999 Constitution which states, “If any Law enacted by the House of Assembly of a State is inconsistent with any law validly made by the National Assembly, the law made by the National Assembly shall prevail, and that other Law shall to the extent of the inconsistency be void”.

Some states and local governments have hidden behind a diverse range of cultural and religious excuses for not implementing the law. Some states claim the law would harm their people.

It is time lovers of children stopped the whipping of the Nigerian child. Cases of abuses are on the rise. The Supreme Court can make a definite pronouncement on how the CRA is above Section 4 (5) of the Constitution. It is the option to adopt rather than the despondency over the attitude of the States.