Lawyer Blames Hardship For High Level Of School Drop-Outs

A Port Harcourt- based legal practitioner, Ambassador Cele. Dickson Msunwi has said economic constraints and financial hardship are major reasons why children still roam the streets of Port Harcourt instead of being in school despite the Child Rights Law in the state.
Ambassador Msunwi, in an interview with The Tide, stated that the child right law is a domestication of the version of the Child Right Act of the National Assembly that seeks to protect the rights of children especially in Rivers State in recent times.
He stated that these violations had made most children vulnerable to psychological, social and economic exploitation and that was not desired in a country like Nigeria or in Rivers State in particular.
When asked if the Child Right Law had protected the rights of children in Rivers State, he stated that the law was not fully protecting the rights of underprivileged children in Rivers State because of the high rate of child-hawkers on the streets of Port Harcourt metropolis who were trafficked from one place to another by their so-called family members.
He also stated that the United Nations Children Emergency Fund(UNICEF) had revealed that the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria was higher than that of any other country in the world.
He further revealed that statistics from UNICEF had shown that there were over 10 million children in the streets who do not go to school and a chunk o these children roam the streets of Port Harcourt.
Giving reasons as to why children still roamed the streets even when primary school education was free in Rivers State, he stated that economic hardship was the major mitigating factor here as most poor families saw education as being too expensive and as a waste of time.
He advised the government to rid of apathy towards education by providing employment opportunities for fresh graduates in our labour market.
When asked what the Rivers State Government could do to ensure children of school age who were found in classrooms and not on the streets during school hours, he said the government should provide free meals for all primary school children in the state. He explained that the provision of free meals would help to motivate these children to come to school and learn as hunger in itself is a source of distraction.
Amb. Msunwi further stated that homes that made use of children as domestic servants rather than sending them to school were involved in child trafficking.
He also said that these homes should be able to send these children to school, get them motivated and make sure they were in classrooms learning during school hours and not on the streets or at home doing laborious chores.
He further stated that it was against natural law for a child to be subjected to a condition that was not good for a human being.

Opeyemi Oguntuase