Nigeria: UNICEF Pledges Support for CRA in Borno

The United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has reiterated that the passage of the Child Rights Act (CRA) in Borno State, northeast Nigeria, will signal a new beginning for conflict-affected children in the state.

The UN agency promised to provide the necessary support as lawmakers in the state work towards passing the bill that seeks to protect children from all forms of abuses.

Nigeria, in 2003, passed into law the Child Rights Act (CRA) in line with the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

However, only 26 of Nigeria’s 36 states have so far passed the law.

Africa’s most populous country operates a federal system of government, meaning laws passed by the National Assembly do not automatically become applicable in all of the country’s 36 states.

Speaking at a public hearing organised by a committee on the Borno State Child Rights Domestication Act in Maiduguri, the UNICEF Chief of Field Office in Maiduguri, Phuong Nguyen, called on the Borno State House of Assembly to expatiate the passage of the bill in order to provide protection for out-of-school children in the state.

‘UNICEF and all other development partners are committed to ensuring that enablers are available for this Act to be enacted into law, thus providing the legal framework binding with all duty bearers to its article’, she said.

For his part, the Deputy Speaker of the Borno State House of Assembly, Abdulahi Askira, said, ‘The rate of child abuse in Borno is alarming and when passed into law, the act will address these issues. I invite you to make contributions that will enhance the quality of the bill’.

Photo source: UNICEF

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