Can plans to reduce violence against children in Nigeria work?

Worried by the alarming trend of violence against children and women, Mrs.
Grace Perpetual Dafiel, a lawyer and a social worker who advocates for the rights of women and children, during a recent workshop in Abuja, discloses efforts by her group-SMILE PROJECT, to stem the phenomenon.
DONALD IORCHIR reports concerns expressed by experts at the workshop

Opening remarks According to Barrister Grace Perpetual Dafiel, “we were here in Goshen to review two documents that have been developed in the F.C.T, Abuja”.
“This is tagged priority agencies 2016-2020”.
Dafiel stressed that the agenda was drawn up to ensure that, all children in the F.C.T are protected and to have optimal development.
She said the objective is to reduce violence and all forms of deprivation by 15 percent by 2020 and also to increase the livelihood and quality of lives of the children in the F.C.T.
“By the time we get this document, there will be need to look at what level of efforts we have put so far”, she said.
Review response plan The second document was to review the response plan to ending violence against children in the FCT.
It equally has aspects of 2016-2020, and based on that, certain actions have been set aside to ensure that laws are properly implemented to bring down issue against violence of children.
“Because of this, we are actually set to review these two document in the FCT, after the three days workshop/training, we are expected to come up with a review document and then come up with the next step to ensure that actions are taken, and the two document are implemented.
Governments as custodians of children “The governments are the first and foremost custodians of the children, the whole children in the FCT belong to government, so, Smile wants government to ensure that children in the FCT have equality of life, so it is government that can come in form of funding”.
Safe school environment Dafiel stated that she wants the government to ensure that the school environment is safe, because the issue of security is really bad.
She therefore challenged the government to redouble its efforts on the issue of security because security matters is the biggest problem of everybody in this country.
Government should collaborate with the traditional institution to bring about community development and welfare of children.
On the role of parents, she said parents have primary responsibility to the children.
“They should ensure the safety of our children and development of our children, to ensure that our children survive and participate against their rights and we must make our home save, they must ensure that they make the basic things in life and develop optimally”.
Similarly, the smile meeting that took place in GwakoGwagwalada area council FCT Abuja, was to give opportunity to the area councils that did not participate in smile projects to learn from the other area councils that benefited from the projects.
“Kwali and Abaji did not participate in the programme, so they came to learn from those who participated.
That is why we brought in Gwagwalada, AMAC and Bwari to come and share the experience that others have during the smile project so that they can pick up from there to roundup the six area council in the FCT” the smile FCT coordinator said.
Participants’ views In their contributions, towards the achievement and development of smile activities in the FCT, the Desk officer, Kwali Area Council, Alhaji Abubakar Sadiq, and the Divisional Head, social welfare, Abaji Area Council, Isa Daudu, lauded smile project for the initiative and development they brought to FCT area councils.
They said the project has being in existence for the past five years and now that they are winding up.
Review of SPA and end VAC priority plan in FCT Background In her submission, the federal capital territory (FCT) smile coordinator, Mrs.
Helen Netugu, said the strengthening mechanism for improving livelihood and household empowerment (SMILE) project supported the social development secretariat (SDS) to develop state priority Agenda (SPA) in 2015 and End VAC Priority plan in 2017 based on the understanding that investment in the poorest and most vulnerable children in Nigeria is a prerequisite towards achievement of not only the vision but also many of the specific goals of Nigeria Vision (NV) 20:2020.
According to her, the SPA was developed through the adaption of the NPA built around six major commitments, focused on the critical priorities which must be addressed in order to ensure the achievement of the objectives and targets of NV20:2020 while FCT E-VAC plan focused on the year Action to End Violence Against children in Nigeria which was launched by His Excellency, Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2015 in response to the findings of the ground breaking research on violence against children (VACS) in 2014 by the Federal Government of Nigeria, is a policy document rolled out to improve the wellbeing of children in FCT and to help achieve the shared goals of children in this document had the support of both state and non-state actors, civil society, the private sector and other bodies.
Its ultimate goal is to accelerate real action in response to all forms of violence (sexual, physical and emotional) against children in their homes, schools, and communities as well as strengthen collaboration among relevant stakeholders.
Interestingly, the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development and FCT Social Development secretariat have renewed their commitment to take action to prevent and respond to all forms of violence against children.
Media, civil society to play crucial roles… Also, the civil society, faith based organizations and the media are urged to maintain the momentum created by the Action, to renew their commitment to their goal of ending violence against children by 2030, to develop robust plans for the implementation of their priority actions and urgently invest the resources required to ensure that Nigerian children grow up free from all forms of violence.
Given its significant progress in tackling violence against children, Nigeria’s status as a pathfinder country was also announced during the launch of the End VAC by 2030 campaign, and identifying Nigeria as a source of learning regionally.
But the pertinent question is: Can these strategies work?

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