SUNDAY, November 20, 2022, passed, rather quietly, in Nigeria, though the world out there celebrated the 2022 edition of World Children’s Day. Yes, we do celebrate our own Nigerian Children’s Day on May 27 every year, yet we still need to respond to the universal day because we are part of it.

The World Children’s Day, WCD, which was established in 1954 as the Universal Children’s Day, had a humble, distant beginning. It was founded as “Rose Day” on June 2, 1857, by Dr. Charles Leonard, the pastor of the Universal Church of the Redeemer in Massachusetts, USA. 

The Republic of Turkey, under its legendary President, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, officially declared it a special day in 1929.

When the UN General Assembly adopted it under the mandate of the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, it also enacted the Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which established the minimum basis for the care and protection of the child anywhere in the world.

The primary requirements under this charter were: the child must be given all it requires for normal physical, material, and spiritual development.  A hungry child must be fed; a sick child must be nursed; a backward child must be helped; a delinquent child must be reclaimed; and the orphan must be provided for.

It also stressed that in times of distress, the child must get the first relief and be protected from every form of exploitation. Also, the child must be prepared to be able to earn a livelihood in adulthood and conditioned to acquire skills to be able to serve fellow humans.

These rights were later developed, and on November 20, 1989, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, CRC. 

It was a compendium treaty of the human rights of the child that covered the social, political, economic, health, and cultural rights of children to prepare them as well-rounded future leaders.

This charter has been followed as closely as possible, especially in the advanced Western world, where the rights of children are extensively secured by law. But the situation is different in the backward nations. These include Nigeria, where over 20 million children are out of school. Many are orphaned by jihadist terrorism, banditry and general insecurity.

Child labour, street hawking, child marriages, child trafficking, “baby factories,” and other heinous crimes against children still prevail despite the Child Rights Act, CRA, adopted in 2003.

The Universal Children’s Day politely` reminds us of our obligations to develop policies and programmes that will protect Nigerian children, especially the girl child, who is still culturally relegated. For a better future, we must invest in our children. If we keep neglecting them, we are stoking a Hobbesian future for our society.