Gombe State House of Assembly has vowed to pass the Child’s Right Act into law in order to provide laws that would protect the rights of the women and children in the state.
Speaker of the House, Sadiq Abubakar Ibrahim stated this during an advocacy visit by the Network Working Group on Ending Child Marriages in the state supported by Save the Children International.
He said despite some bottlenecks faced over the passage of the Act in the state, the state legislature was ready to pass it into law in addition to any bill that is aimed at protecting the child, especially the girl child who faces a lot of challenges in the society.
Abubakar expressed the state Governor’s willingness to assent to any law that will stipulate stiff penalties for any offender found guilty of molesting, abusing or taking advantage of women and children in whatever way.
Speaking earlier, Gombe State Save the Children International Field Office Engagement and Advocacy Coordinator, Mr. Akpan Effiong, lamented that only 43 per cent of children reportedly complete primary schools in the state, according to the 2018 report of the National Demographic Health Survey (NDHS).
Mr Effiong said that out of the 58.1 per cent of children who are out of primary schools in the state, 52.8 per cent are girls stressing that girls in the state constitute 56.1 per cent of the 53.1 per cent of children that are out of secondary schools as a result of child or early marriage.
“Child marriage is globally identified as one of the major impediments to sustainable development and realization of human rights”, he said.
The Save the Children Engagement and Advocacy Coordinator, listed child marriage, poverty and the direct or hidden cost of education, school related gender biased violence, school environments that are not gender sensitive, emergencies, among many others, as reasons why girls don’t go to school
