Child Abuse-1: Predatory Orphanages in Nigeria

I teach Child Abuse topics to postgraduate students and it’s usually amazing how they quickly make up their lecture notes simply by asking them to discuss the topic. Some of them could talk up nice volumes on this subject. It comes in different shades-physical, sexual, emotional etc. We literally see Child Abuse everywhere in our Society but no government institution seems to be taking any concrete measures about curtailing this menace until another incident attracts some sensational headlines in the press and few “motions”are triggered as presently playing out in Ogun State. Concerned NGOs appear uncoordinated in bringing about any system or institutional change. Their mode of operation often appears a pursuit of some stunning incidents for media attention.  And I’m yet to know of any government in Nigeria either at the local, state or federal levels, that has paid any serious attention to the issue of Child Abuse and Child Protection. 

A good number of the orphanages in Nigeria represent dark recesses for Child Abuse. These centres are largely unregulated by government and are usually run as “concentration camps” where the main drive seems to be to attract donor agencies or charity organizations to make donations which are not uncommonly diverted for personal enterprise of the operators of these orphanage “homes”.  These shams have also been widely reported as child trafficking centres, nay “Babies Shops", where children are simply on display for sale to the highest bidder. The intense corruption perpetrated by some owners of these “shopping centres” with connivance or complicity of government officials and resultant desperation and struggle for survival by these trapped kids (akin to some modern day slavery) in a despicable and  unhealthy environment, provide a fertile ground for all manners of abuse behind the high walls and iron gates. 

The Child Rights Act of 2003 essentially provides for child protection by the state. Most of the states in Southern part of Nigeria have domesticated this Act as state law. There is still significant resistance to the Child Rights Act in Northern Nigeria, apparently because of some prevailing “cultural” practices that are clearly within the circle of Child Abuse. A notable example is child marriage. We all witnessed with horror a former state governor and senator from one of the Northern states marry a child! Not even the national outrage (his was just a very tiny tip of the iceberg of prevailing child marriages in Nigeria, especially in the North) and existence of a federal law, which prohibits child marriage, could deter Mr. Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria! It is such elements of impunity in virtually all spheres of governance that puts us and our institutions as a nation on a life support. Is it therefore any surprise that there is no functional, adequately funded Child Protection Agency by any government in Nigeria? Individuals and NGOs of all shades and character spring up to fill the gap in a cauldron of a confused mix and the stench continues to emit from time to time. The recent saga in Ogun state where the patron of one of the orphanages was alleged to have repeatedly raped the girls under his "care" until one of them summoned enough courage to report the incident is an index case of how dark the recess could be. The matter is still being "investigated", a euphemism for mastering ineptitude, incompetence and inactivity. Unfortunately, for every case reported, we can only imagine in horror the number of incidents we may never get to know. What promise can any future possibly hold when there is no collective sense of responsibility for these hapless kids, as “our” kids; when our government, at all levels, has better things to do than protect our hope for any future?