EVERY child has a right to life
Every child has the right from birth to a name, a nationality, and cared for by parents
•Every child has a right to health and health services
•Every child has the right to be protected from hazardous or harmful work and economic exploitation

•Every child has the right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.
•Every child has the right to an education
•Every child has the right not to be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

•Every child has the right to an adequate standard of living
•Every child capable of forming views should have the right to express those views freely in matters affecting them
•Every child with disabilities should enjoy a full and decent life , in dignity , in conditions that promote self-reliance and facilitate child’s active participation in the community

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the adoption of UNICEF’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, a summary of which is listed above.  There have been significant changes globally in concerns over the plight of children. However, these have not resulted in marked improvements in the state of the world’s children.

About 17,000 children under the age of five, according to UNICEF’s statistics,  still die daily from largely preventable causes, girls, in some societies remain at home while their brothers go to school. Access to medical facilities remains limited; child labour and exploitation are on the increase.

For many countries, child’s rights laws are observed in breach. Nigeria, for example, passed the Child’s Rights Act, CRA, in 2003, 14 years after the UNICEF convention. The Act drew its provisions from the UNICEF convention copiously quoted above, and included fines and imprisonment for violations. The law is ignored, starting from governments that have refused to recognise it to individuals who torture children.

States engage in the domestication of the CRA, a practice under which they throw out aspects of the law they do not want. This unchallenged violation of the law – no State can amend a federal law – applies only to the CRA and the Freedom of Information Act, two laws that bear great importance to our future and present.

Child marriages are practised in some parts of Nigeria.  Children do not attend school and there are inadequate provisions for their health, sports and recreation. Physically challenged children get worse treatment; they are sometimes ignored or taunted over their disabilities.
Nigeria cannot build a future without children, healthy children.