Abuja – The FCT Administration is to sensitise the public on the challenges of street begging, child abuse, prostitution and other related vices ravaging Abuja.

Dr Biodun Olorunfemi, the Permanent Secretary in the FCT, made the disclosure on Monday in Abuja during the flag-off of a road show on the sensitisation exercise.

He said the exercise was being organised by the Society Against Prostitution and Child Labour (SAP-CLN), an NGO, in collaboration with the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) and the FCT Social Development Secretariat.

“The exercise will enable the administration to achieve a new era of social stability and security in the city.

“The administration will address squarely all the identified social and environmental challenges through a more strategic approach,’’ he said.

Olorunfemi said the administration had incorporated and introduced a juvenile rehabilitation programme for child-hawkers, beggars and other children in conflict with the law.

“This is to engage them meaningfully, thereby keeping them off the street permanently and to reshape their future,’’ he said.

According to him, the administration has established a family court and inaugurated the Child Rights Implementation Committee (CRIMCO).

Olorunfemi, who was represented by Mrs Jumai Kwanashi, Director, Monitoring and Inspection, said the mandate of the court was to prosecute, in accordance with the laws, anyone trampling on the rights of a child.

To curtail the menace of commercial sex workers in Abuja, he said the administration had established a rehabilitation centre to provide vocational training for young women.

Olorunfemi said for effective implementation of the ban on street begging, the administration would soon introduce customised alms collection boxes in the city to provide alternative way of assisting the poor.

The coordinator of SAP-CLN, Mrs Grace Adogo, said the initiative had improved the lives of young women as they now see things differently.

She listed the challenges facing the organisation as a lack of a home where destitute and child hawkers could be rehabilitated.

Miss Loveth Snowman, one of the rehabilitees, said she had benefited a lot from the organisation, saying that prostitution was not what one should be proud of.

“Prostitution is not a job and would never be a job, it is just a life time fun and also a life time of regret,” she said.

Snowman said the rehabilitation had helped her established herself as she now owned a saloon. (NAN)