By Dayo Johnson
Akure – THE United Nations Children’s Fund UNICEF‎ Saturday called for an urgent action to adopt the Child Rights Act across all the states of the Federation and to end violence against children.

Children’s Day

It’s representative in Nigeria, Muhamed Fall‎ said that lamented that “‎millions of Nigerian children suffer some form of physical, emotional or sexual violence.

“According to a 2014 survey by the National Population Commission, with support from UNICEF and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, six out of ten Nigerian children experience at least one of these forms of violence before they reach 18.

“Each one of us is responsible for creating a world where children feel safe, protected and empowered to speak up for themselves,”

“So far, State-wide Child Rights Acts have been passed in 24 of the Nigeria’s 36 states, with Enugu being the most recent to enact the law in December 2016.

“We call on the State Assemblies of the remaining 12 states to urgently pass Child Rights bills and on governors to sign those bills into law.

“We also call on governors of the 29 states who have not yet launched state-level campaigns to end violence against children to do so,”

Fall said that “even while we increase our commitments to protect children’s rights we must work even harder to make these rights a reality for children in Nigeria.” End