Children are the gift from God. This expression aptly
explains why couples who are yet to get this blessing from God in their
marriage constantly besiege God for the gift. They can go extra mile to have
children.

In the old African communal setting, a child may be born to
a particular family, but the child belongs to the entire community as every
member of that community is bound in conscience to ensure the social, physical,
economic, and spiritual well -being, growth and development of the child.

For the Igbo people in South Eastern Nigeria, the importance
of the child is expressed in the kind of names like Nwadiuto meaning child is
sweet, Nwabueze meaning child is king etc.

The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI says this about children;
“Children are gift from God to humanity, and they must be the object of
particular concern on the part of their families, the church, society and
governments, for they are source of renewed life”

In trying to safeguard the future of the children often
referred to as the leaders of tomorrow, Nigerian leaders adopted and ratified
the United Nations conventions on the rights of the child, as well the African
Union Charter on the rights and welfare of the child.

The act states that children have rights and that their
confidence and self esteem are to be restored and improved upon. It provides
that children with some form of disability should enjoy the same rights and
privileges as other children and also ensures that they are adequately
protected in order to boost their self confidence. These are what ought to be.

The child’s right act which was passed into law in 2003
would have provided all that is needed to put the Nigerian child in a
comparative advantage over their fellow children from other parts of the world,
but it has continued to suffer from poor education and enlightenment of the
rural populace where majority of the children are found. It is predicted that
even at the end of 2012, nine years after the passage of the child’s right act
into law, the 36 States will not have passed the act. What this portends is
that children are being harassed, molested, abused by adults without  knowing that they have rights to be protected
and without any form of molestation.

It is a common feature on the major streets of our cities,
how children are used for all kinds of dehumanising activities including
hawking in the traffic during school hours, street begging, etc. Other children
are used as house-helps in many homes and in such homes. They are not only
denied formal education, they are also made to work so hard and eat very little
and in some cases, they are subjected to sexual molestation by their supposed
boss.

Given the high level of poverty in the land, an estimated
one million Nigerian children are on the streets across the country,and
government provision for the homeless children had remained grossly inadequate.

Before now, child abuse and child labour was majorly
associated with children who are not living with their biological parents, but
today, with the constant sky- rocketing cost of living and most parents not
been able to meet their daily needs, children are now been co-opted to enhance
the chances of putting food on the table for the family.

Another aspect of what the Nigerian child faces is the
illicit exposure to the recent developments in the information technology. Many
parents saturate their homes with internet enabled phones and computers. All
these are illicit because many of the contents are not suitable for children;
and if the children must use the internet, they should be supervised by their
parents to ensure that their morality is not destroyed as that is the greatest
form of child abuse.

Meanwhile, many Nigerian children whose parents live in the
city, and are civil servants, workers in the private sector as well as
individual business owners, are constantly abusing their children by leaving
the nurturing of their children in the hands of house-helps and computers in
search of “better life for the children”.

As Nigerian children recently joined their counterparts in
other parts of the world to celebrate this year’s children’s Day which always
comes up every May 27, the question is, what is the government’s plan for the
thousands of children of school age roaming about in many cities  of Nigeria? How can parents and guardians who
use children for all sorts of economic activities be brought to book? What can
the government do to ensure that the moral foundation of the children are
adequately taken care of as it is the only way to ensure a better future for
the society?

Kingsley is of the Communication Dept; Catholic Institute of
West Africa, Port Harcourt

Izejiobi Kingsley