How 743,000 Nigerian children were displaced by violence – UNICEF

Emeka Ibemere
Obviously, this year’s Children’s Day event could be said to be the worst event in the annals of the epoch-making occasion. How
The rights of children in Nigeria suffered tremendously during the year in review to the extent that UN children's fund (UNICEF) released a damaging reports on the suffering children.
The event  may have come and gone but the memories of Nigerian children, who are agonizing in their different refugee Camps for insecurity in the country is a burden of prove to the governments at all levels, because of their inability to protect the Nigerian-Child.
As Children celebrate, many of their mates are facing numerous problems in Nigeria- drug abuse, child abuse, kidnapping, child labour, declining school enrollment

and denial of their rights.
 Too many children are languishing in prisons while many are serving jail sentences with their mothers and are raised from the four walls of prisons across Nigeria. Not done, many are displaced from their oriental abodes because of insecurity, flood disasters and oil spillages that have ravaged South-South zones. 
Reports coming from the UN children's fund (UNICEF), recently released estimated that around 734,000  Nigerian children have been displaced or otherwise affected by recent Boko Haram violence in Nigeria's restive northeast, with at least 10,000 of them having been separated from their parents.
According to UNICEF, an estimated 743,000 children have been uprooted by the conflict in the three most affected states of Nigeria. Geoffrey Njoku, Media and External Relations for UNICEF, said in a statement that the number of unaccompanied and separated children could be as high as 10,000.
In the last six years, Nigeria has been battling insurgency, especially in its North Eastern region, where tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced across the region. Last year, Boko Haram militants seized several towns and villages across a swathe of Nigerian territory; the size of Belgium amidst stepped up attacks in the North Eastern Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States.
Nearly a thousand hostages, mostly women and children, have been freed from Boko Haram, as Nigerian troops continue to raid the group's last major strongholds in the Sambisa Forest.  The Nigerian army is being assisted by troops from neighbouring Chad and Niger, and  have since managed to roll back much of the militant group's gains by retaking most of the captured towns.
However, UNICEF said women and children were bearing the brunt of the Boko Haram insurgency, with militants occasionally using them as suicide bombers to attack crowded places. "The use of children as suicide bombers and the increase in the numbers of suicide bombings is an alarming and appalling trend in the perpetration of violence against children," said UNICEF”, the children's fund added: "More children and women have been used as suicide bombers in northeast Nigeria in the first five months of this year than during the whole of last year”.
According to UNICEF, 26 suicide attacks were recorded in 2014 compared to 27 this year as of May. "In at least three-quarters of these incidents, children and women were reportedly used to carry out the attacks," the UN agency said. “Girls and women have been used to detonate bombs or explosive belts at crowded locations, such as marketplaces and bus stations,” it lamented.
According to UNICEF, the insurgency had adversely impacted school attendance in many parts of the restive region especially in Borno State, where most children haven't been to school for the last year.
“As Nigeria commemorates this year's Children's Day, the choice of the theme of violence against children and the urgent need to stop it is apt and timely," said UNICEF. "It speaks eloquently to the current difficult circumstances facing children in Nigeria today, especially in the northeast". The UN agency went on to warn that the ongoing conflict had "severely constrained the full-scale provision of health services, thereby threatening children's right to survival”.
It would be recalled that by the resolution 836(IX) of 14 December 1954, the General Assembly recommended that all countries institute a Universal Children's Day, to be observed as a day of worldwide fraternity and understanding between children.
 It recommended that the Day was to be observed also as a day of activity devoted to promoting the ideals and objectives of the Charter and the welfare of the children of the world. The Assembly suggested to governments that the Day be observed on the date and in the way which each considers appropriate.
The date 20 November marks the day on which the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, in 1959, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in 1989.
Decades after the world made a promise to children: “that we would do everything in our power to protect and promote their rights to survive and thrive, to learn and grow, to make their voices heard and to reach their full potential.
In spite of the overall gains, there are many children who have fallen even further behind. Old challenges have combined with new problems to deprive many children of their rights and the benefits of development. To meet these challenges, and to reach those children who are hardest to reach, we need new ways of thinking and new ways of doing - for adults and children.”
It would be recalled that terrorist goons, Boko Haram recruited and used child -soldiers during their most offensive years. Boys as young as 11 were reportedly paid to fight, plant bombs, spy, and act as suicide bombers while girls have been abducted by Boko Haram for slave labour and sexual exploitation. Some of these girls were abducted while working on farms in remote villages or hawking wares on the street and inside their schools as some children, presumed to be between ages 15 and 17, have reportedly been observed manning checkpoints for anti-Boko Haram citizen vigilante groups, but they do not appear to be doing so under a government mandate.
Some vigilante groups inform government security forces about suspected Boko Haram activity and have admitted to using a number of children in their operations. However, the military has reportedly told these groups not to allow children to join.

Reports also indicated that in 2013, Nigeria made a moderate advancement in efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labour. The Government adopted its first National Policy on Child Labour and National Plan of Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour, and the Ministry of Labour and Productivity (MOLP) increased the number of inspectors employed and inspections conducted.

In addition, the National Poverty Eradication Program (NAPEP) launched a conditional cash transfer program that will provide funds to households under the condition that their children remain in school. However, children in Nigeria continue to engage in forced labour in various sectors. Some children engage in armed conflict with non-government forces in the Northeast. Inconsistencies remain in laws regarding child labour and the minimum age for work is below international standards.

Further reports also stated that Nigeria is a source, transit, and destination country for child trafficking. Children in Nigeria are trafficked internally to work in agriculture, begging, domestic service, mining, and street peddling. Children from Nigeria are trafficked to Equatorial Guinea where they may be forced to work as domestic servants, market labourers, vendors, and launderers. Nigerian children are also trafficked to Saudi Arabia and forced to work as beggars and street vendors. Girls from Nigeria are trafficked to Europe for commercial sexual exploitation.

Meanwhile, Nigeria has ratified the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa known as Kampala Convention. The Convention prohibits armed groups from recruiting children, or otherwise permitting them to participate in conflict, and engaging in sexual slavery and trafficking, especially of women and children, observers said if the principles of the convention can be executed, then the Nigerian Children may give a sigh of relief. Since inception of the Children’s Parliament, it has been very active in advocating for children’s rights but the law has not been effective to grant them their rights.

 UNICEF further said in 2003, Nigeria adopted the Child Rights Act to domesticate the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The organisation stated that this law was passed at the Federal level; it is only effective, if State Assemblies also enact it. To date, only 16 of the country’s 36 States have passed the Act. Intense advocacy continues for the other 20 States to pass it.

According to them, this explains that the landmark legislative achievement has not yet translated into improved legal protection throughout the Federation. “Nigeria has been unable to deal with several issues hindering the protection rights of children such as children living on the streets, children affected by communal conflict, drug abuse, human trafficking and the weaknesses of the juvenile justice system amongst others”, UNICEF stated.

Children conflict with the law for a variety of reasons. Poverty, social inequality, failed educational system, family problems, peer pressure, social and religious conflicts in which children are used as the foot soldiers are some of the factors that account for the number of children in conflict with the law. Unfortunately these child offenders are often treated like adults and mixed with adults in prisons. Many are convicted and jailed without making contact with a social worker or getting the opportunity to be heard.

The most recent report to the African Union on the rights and welfare of the Nigerian child showed that about 6,000 children are in prison and detention centres across the country. Girls make up less than 10 per cent and they mainly come into contact with the law as a result of criminal acts committed against them such as rape, sexual exploitation and trafficking.