The House of Assembly Child Rights Act Bill has been forwarded to the state administration for the previous two years in an attempt to get it passed into law, according to the Kano Field Office of UNICEF, but to no effect.
In order to further promote children’s rights and protection in the state, UNICEF asked the Kano state government to pass and sign the Child Protection Act as soon as possible.
In her presentation at a two-day capacity-building workshop for media professionals on Wednesday in Kano, Mrs. Emelia Allan, Child Protection Manager for UNICEF, Kano Field Office, expressed her satisfaction that out of 36 states in Nigeria, only four had not been able to sign the Child Right Act.
But she urged the states of Kano, Bauchi, Adamawa, and Gombe to take the necessary action by ratifying the Child Right Act in order to guarantee the welfare and safety of children.
She also lamented the fact that Kano, the state with the highest population in the nation, only records the birth of 54.6% of children under the age of five.
She said, “Kano needs to do more. Nigeria gets sick when Kano sneezes. Kano needs to get up and start living. There should be more children registered. Although we are aware that the government are making every effort, we must do more.
She came out firmly against female genital mutilation and child marriage.
She denounced child labor, exploitation, and violence against children and urged all parties involved to speak out against all forms of child abuse, including child trafficking.
She argued in favor of civil registration and child vital statistics while criticizing the lack of vital data collecting in the majority of African countries, including the registration of births and deaths.
She claims that maintaining such documents, such as marriage registration, will significantly increase the accuracy of Nigeria’s population census and decrease child trafficking.
