2013 Day of the African Child: Is the Night Over?

As I prepare to give a talk at a forum being organized in commemoration of 2013 Day of the African Child on the theme, “Eliminating Harmful Social and Cultural Practices Affecting Children: Our Collective Responsibility” I could not stop thinking about the precarious state of the African child in the twenty first century. While a few African countries have made some effort at tackling prevalent cultural and social menace bedeviling the African child, most of Africa only pay a lip service to Child Rights. In 2003, Nigeria passed the Child Rights Act to domesticate the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The law, though passed at the federal level, would only be effective if also passed by State Assemblies. It has remained largely an "ink effect" on paper as most the States in Southern part of Nigeria that have passed the law are yet to put up any visible and modern Child Protection System as provided for in the law, while most the Northern States have not even bothered pretending about protecting "Child Rights" as the State Assemblies are yet to consider domesticating any aspects of the Child Rights Act despite pressures from the civil society. The impunity of this posture and the "dark night" it portends of any child in that part of the world, and similar setting, was evident in 2010 when a serving senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Ahmed Yerima, in the same National Assembly that passed the law just some years back, "married" a 13 year old girl! Indeed, the man who was old enough to be the child's grandfather actually "bought" the poor Egyptian child for $100,000 of a dowry! Meanwhile, under the National Child Rights Act, the legal age for marriage is 18 years. And to underscore the despair of the Nigerian child (and African child in general) and how impotent the law could be in protecting him or her against the tyranny of bestial calibres in the garb of culture, religion and inordinate considerations, the "marriage" took place at National Mosque in Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria where the laws of the land should be illuminating every space of the city. The Nigerian State could not rise up to protect one child who represented the face of numerous children wailing in dark recesses in different parts of the country under the bondage of primitive practices which clearly put their lives, potential and future on the line. Female genital mutilation is still occurring unchecked in different parts of Africa and boys are still subjected to primitive and brutal rites of passage in some culture. Child labour, child trafficking and sale of babies are all "booming" with highly placed people involved. The justice system seems ill prepared and apparently uninterested in issues of crimes against children. We have attended to some cases of child sexual assault in which police officers are yet to show any interest in the forensic evidence collected. Meanwhile, if you check out the children of "leaders" in Africa and folks like Ahmed Yerima, their children are most probably schooling in the best of schools abroad or best of private schools within; well catered for and protected. On the other hand, an average public school in Africa is simply a disaster for whatever a school is meant to be. The conditions that necessitated the Soweto Uprising in 1976 are still very much with us in Africa and has gotten worse and more convoluted. The Day is yet to come for the Africa child. The gloomy night overshadows their destiny while government officials, on "special" occasions,  make speeches that are drown by extended squawk of vultures devouring our children. We can't continue this way and we must use the theme of 2013 to dismantle unfounded social, cultural and religious arguments that have so far been used to destroy the future of Africa. Our continent remains underdeveloped partly because our children have been stripped of dignity, and their souls entangled in conflicts and unresolved injuries inflicted upon them. It is, therefore, not surprising that African children usually thrive outside the continent where there is a system of Child Protection, and rule of law that applies to everyone irrespective of status, power or position. I'll lend my voice to the battle cry to save our children and save Africa. We must not underestimate the power of our Collective Responsibility. What are you doing?