Senate President, Bukola Saraki, on Friday pledged that the National Assembly would soon engage states that have yet to subscribe to the Child Rights Act with a view to ensuring that the convention becomes operational in all the states of the federation.
He expressed hope that the strict implementation of the Act would guarantee security and safety for the Nigerian child. Saraki stated this during an interactive session with school children who were in the federal parliament to celebrate the Children’s Day with the lawmakers.
The theme of this year’s celebration is, “Protect the right of the child in the face of violence and insecurity and end child marriage.”
Saraki noted that the theme, which borders on protecting children against violence and early marriage, is an issue that is very dear to the Senate.
He said the Senate would henceforth ensure, through its relevant committees, that those found to have infringed upon the rights of children are made to face the law and appropriate sanctions meted out to them.
He said, “I want to first of all reassure you that we believe the future belongs to the children and there is no society that can flourish if the future is not better than the present and for the future of Nigeria to be better than the present, we want all our children to have a greater future and that is our own responsibility.
“We are going to engage legislators from the different states to see how those who have passed the Child’s Rights Act can begin to implement them and to make those in the remaining 12 states who have not passed it to understand the need for them to pass it.
“We are going to do a lot of advocacy and consultations and we are hoping to have a kind of conference with all the states so that the entire 36 states would have the law.
“Clearly, it is a task before us to ensure that the laws we passed that have to do with the safety of our children are adhered to.
“We must, today, as part of the ceremony for this year’s Children’s Day, make a commitment to see that through oversight we ensure the implementation of laws meant to protect our children from abuse and violence.
“I think it is also the responsibility of the supervising ministries to engage us and bring some of these cases of abuse to the attention of the relevant committees so that we can through our oversight function address them.
“No matter what we do in any other aspect of this society, if we cannot achieve the basic things of providing safety for our children, then we cannot say that we are one of the top 20 economies in the world.
“A country does not just achieve that status by GDP measured on the scale decided by economic forces. The quality of the future life for our children is very important.”
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