CHILD PROTECTION IN NIGERIA: AN OVERVIEW OF THE CHILD'S RIGHTS ACT

2020

In the past, children were not granted and afforded any special protection, the only protection some children were granted flowed from their parent’s status, making the protection to these privileged few to be one afforded by means of discrimination via social class and status of each child’s parents’ social stratum. Children in recent times around the world are being given the deserved attention resulting in various declarations and conventions which have gotten universal acceptance. This writer while taking a look at the Nigerian position addresses the need for practical protection rather than legal protection as the legal framework in child rights in Nigeria have had no practical implementation despite the somewhat rich flavour of legal provisions, international and municipal, of their protection.

Scholars International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice, 2021

Children in Nigeria experience abuse of their fundamental rights on a daily basis. The living condition of many children is deplorable. Despite the adoption of the CRA 2003 children in Nigeria suffer a lot of abuse of their rights. There is no significant improvement in the welfare and quality of lives of children in Nigeria. This work considers how realizable these rights are and if there is a conducive socioeconomic environment to actualize these rights. This work examines the impact of the CRA 2003 on the rights and welfare of children in Nigeria and posits that lack of awareness of the rights of children, lack of political will by the government to implement the CRA, non-adoption of the CRA 2003 by some states, socioeconomic problems like poverty, lack of basic amenities, bad governance, among others, are responsible for the poor implementation of the CRA 2003. Good governance, effective implementation of the CRA 2003, punishment of offenders, improvement of socioeconomic conditions, eradication of poverty, and uniform adoption of the CRA by all states in Nigeria are some recommendations underscored by this research. This study employs the doctrinal research methodology.

Purpose-This article examines the state of child rights in Nigeria twenty years after the adoption of the Child Rights Act. The adoption of the Child Rights Act 2003 was the result of the domestication of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.Prior to the domestication of the international legal instruments, Nigeria relied on the constitutional provision on human rights protection to assert the rights of children. Design/Methodology/Approach-The approach taken is a textual analysis based on evaluating the achievements of the authorities, the law enforcement agencies, as well as other stakeholders in protecting and promoting child rights in Nigeria. The critical analysis of the existing literature and the actions taken towards the protection and promotion of child rights in Nigeria. Findings-This research found that after twenty years of the emergence of the Child Rights Act 2003, there is still no major progress made toward the protection and promotion of child rights in Nigeria. The existence of challenges to the achievement of goals in terms of child rights protection requires that new approaches be taken by law and policymakers, and other stakeholders. Originality/ Values-The valueof this article resides in the deconstruction of the mechanisms put in place by Nigerian authorities to achieve the goals in terms of child rights protection. The enduring issues of child trafficking, Child labour, child abuse and inefficacy of the education system are evidence of the ineffective implementation and enforcement of the Child Rights Act 2003.

NIGERIAN BAR JOURNAL, 2023

Enacting the Child's Rights Act in 2003 was a significant step towards realizing the child's universally recognized rights, such as the rights to survival, development, and protection. The provisions of the law have also been domesticated in some of the 36 states of the country. However, while recognizing the rights of the child is a commendable start, the provisions of the Act have been very difficult to actualize. After several years of enactment, the child is still far from fully enjoying the protection granted under the Act. This is due to several factors discussed in this article, which include law-related causes, access to and affordability of institutional safeguards, corruption, administrative, religious, economic, and socio- cultural issues. This article argues that a careful evaluation of these problems with a view to resolving them will assist in the actualization of the Child’s Right Act.

Canadian Social Science, 2010

Every human society, no matter how primitive it may look, is governed by a code of laws. These laws give order and meaning to their lives and serve for social control and overall development of the society. Some societies deny their citizens especially women and children, their natural and civil rights because they believe that the rights of women and children are adequately protected by their husbands and fathers. But the inhuman treatment meted out to women and children even by their husbands and fathers have brought to the fore the errors and problems of taking for granted the protection of the rights of women and children in the society. This paper therefore examines the dangers posed by taking the rights of children for granted in the society and efforts being made in Nigeria to protect the child for the overall and sustainable development of the society.

This paper is critically analyzes the general principles of implementing the right of a child in Nigeria vis a vis the provisions of the convention on the right of the child. These administrative and legal measures are the yardstick upon which one could text and evaluate the effectiveness of the convention on the Nigerian child. The method used for this work is analytical and critical. In this wise, the paper finds that to realise these measures, the continent of Africa of which Nigeria is one found that as a result of cultural and socio-cultural differentiation domesticated the African counterpart to United Nation Convention on the Rights of a Child known as the Africa Charter on the Right and Welfare of the child and Nigeria went further to domesticate based on Nigeria Culture, the child Right Act. Though recognising some administrative procedures in place like Protocols there exist some inadequacies. These inadequacies are still the major challenge to the effectiveness of implementing the United Nation Convention on the Rights of the Child in Nigeria as a lot of administrative machinery are not in place to with court to man the abuse of these rights, personnel inadequacy, etc. In all, the paper advocates that Nigerians should realise child protection to come under the exclusive list instead of coming under the concurrent list to make it a federal law, which must be complied with, by all the state of the federation. Keywords: Convention, Rights, Child, Implementation, Administrative, Nigeria

International Journal of Law and Interdisciplinary Legal Studies, 2017

The aim of this paper is to undertake a critical analysis of the provisions of the Child Rights Act (CRA) vis-à-vis the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The focus of this paper will be limited to the provisions of the CRA that guarantee the substantive rights of children. In making this comparative analysis, reference will also be made to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999), the supreme legislative instrument in Nigeria. This will be relevant in determining the extent of the similarity (or difference, as the case may be) between child rights protection systems at the national and international level. This paper will also consider the possibility of harmonising national and international child rights protection standards in the event of a disparity between the two.

Sriwijaya Law Review, 2021

International law or treaty binds a state where such state signed, ratified acceded or domesticated same. In a monist State, ratification alone suffices for the international law or treaty to become binding whereas, in a dualist State, domestication as a condition must have complied. It is because of the peculiarities within various nations' legal systems (Monist or Dualist system). In 1989, The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), an international human rights instrument came into force. Since its domestication as the Child Rights Act (CRA 2003) in Nigeria by the National Assembly, only about 24 States have enacted the law for onward enforcement. Nigeria is a nation which became independent in the year 1960 comprising now of 36 states and Abuja as its Federal Capital Territory all under the Federal Government. Since its domestication as the Child Rights Act (CRA 2003) in Nigeria by the National Assembly, many States have enacted the law for onward enfor...

2015

The aim of this paper is to discuss this issue in line with child rights vis-à-vis the Nigerian legal system. It would be argued that the constitutional framework and the cultural setting of the Nigerian society are major factors responsible for the inconsistency between legal rules and societal practice. The first section would be a brief outline of the development of an international child rights protection system. This would be followed by a description of the child rights framework in Nigeria. The third section would examine child rights protection in the light of the Nigerian constitution after which the cultural context of child rights would be discussed in the fourth section. The concluding section would consider possible ways by which the issues highlighted under the constitutional and cultural headings can be effectively addressed. In doing so, recourse would be made to peculiarities of the Nigerian constitution as well as relevant cultural structures which have shaped the collective attitude to child rights protection in Nigeria. The development of an effective child rights protection framework in Nigeria requires some form of synergy between the law in the books and the law in action, an outcome which cannot be realised without proper understanding of these constitutional and cultural peculiarities.