THE 2012 Children’s Day, the 58th Children’s Day since the United Nations Assembly declared it in 1954, was unique. It fell on a Sunday, so it passed without embarrassments governments would have endured about their neglect of children.

Children, according to our leaders, are tomorrow’s leaders. Concerns about them are always postponed. Nothing shows the neglect of the Nigerian child better than the reluctance of some States to pass the Child Rights Act, CRA, nine years after it became law.

The illegality of State Houses of Assembly having to evaluate a federal law is one case our fiery lawyers shun. One of the goals of CRA is the elimination or at least reduction of child labour, one of the biggest forms of child abuse.

Child labourers include house helps, apprentices, refuse collectors, hawkers, street traders, market/shop assistants, bus conductors, motor park touts, ‘porters’,  beggars for themselves or aides to blind or handicapped adult beggars. The CRA rates exploitative labour as a violation of a child’s rights.

Section 28 states, “Subject to this Act, no child shall be a. subjected to any forced or exploitative labour; or b. employed to work in any capacity except where he is employed by a member of his family on light work of an agricultural, horticultural or domestic character; or c. required, in any case to lift, carry or move anything so heavy as likely to adversely affect his physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development; or d. employed as a domestic help outside his home or family environment”.

Provisions in subsections (3) and (4) punish individual offenders with a fine of N50, 000 or five years’ imprisonment or both, while a body corporate and all its members will be liable on conviction to a fine of N250, 000.

The CRA prohibits child marriages and betrothals. In Section 21, no person under the age of 18 years is capable of contracting a valid marriage and any such marriage is null and void. Under Section 22: “(1) No parent, guardian or any other person shall betroth a child to any person. (2) A betrothal in contravention of subsection (1) of this section is null and void”.

The provisions are in the Criminal and Penal Codes, and carry a life term on conviction, but are not enforced.

If States implemented the CRA, Nigerians would be celebrating the progress of the child. We care for the child with words. It is not too late to create a future for the child (and nation). Vanguard again draws the attention of the nation to the importance of the child at its 4th Annual Children’s Conference. It is time to act on CRA.