By Victoria Ojeme and Glory Odizuru

The National Human Rights Commission, NHRC is setting-up human rights clubs across  all universities and secondary schools in Nigeria to check incidences of right abuses among the youths.

The executive secretary of the commission, Tony Ojukwu disclosed this on Thursday during the secondary school quiz competition in commemoration of the 2019 international human rights day in Abuja adding that the competition is aimed at inculcating human rights norms and values in children from the early stage of their development.

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He said “Human rights education is crucial to the work of the commission which is why we are going beyond organizing the quiz competition to establishing human right clubs in schools across the country.”

“Our findings have shown that in the various schools across the country where human right clubs are established, human right awareness is high which invariably reduces human rights violation.”

“Apart from encouraging the establishment of human rights clubs in secondary and primary schools, the commission is working towards establishing more human rights clubs at the tertiary institutions.”

He said that following the successes recorded in the previous editions of the NHRC Secondary Schools Quiz competition within the Federal Capital Territory, the commission is planning to reach out to more schools outside of Abuja to encourage wider participation.

“We believe the idea of organizing quiz competition each year will improve the knowledge and understanding of human rights among the young population,” he noted.

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He said that the commission is worried over the spate of violence against children in recent times as the national dailies are awash with complaints of human rights violations involving children of all ages often perpetuated by adults including parents and guardians.

Ojukwu called on state governments that are yet to domesticate the Child Rights Act 2003 to do so saying this will go a long way to protect the rights of this vulnerable group.

Vanguard News