Senate moves against child labour

The Senate yesterday tasked the Ministry of Women Affairs and security agencies to take measures against child abuse in the land.
It also called on its committee on Women Affairs to investigate the viral trend and report back to it in two weeks.
These resolutions followed a motion on “Urgent Need to Stop the Increasing Rate of Child Labour, Molestation and Abuse in Nigeria” sponsored by Senator Benjamin Uwajumogu (APC, Imo North) during plenary.
Uwajumogu said children were gifts from God and as such should be loved, provided for and protected.
“The recent data published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that 50.8 percent of Nigerian children, aged between five and 17 are engaged in child labour,” he said.
Uwajumogu explained that child labour entailed work that were mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to the children and ultimately deprived them the opportunity to good education.
“Often child domestic helps are forced to do work that is way beyond their tender bodies, and this eventually stunts the general development of the child.
“Also, children who depend on the care of the adult are often molested and maltreated in ways that are out rightly inhuman.”
He said a 2014 survey by the National Population Commission (NPC) showed that six out of every 10 children had experienced some form of violence.
Seconding the motion, Gershom Bassey (PDP, Cross River South) who said offences against children were quite alarming, called for the enforcement of Child’s Right Act because children were not protected in the way they should be.
On his part, Matthew Urhoghide (PDP, Edo South) decried the situation where an adult male could sexually abuse a baby female.
“The sexual abuse that an adult male wants to carryout out on a baby female and he says he has some mental stability, certainly, he lacks the mental stability. There is some element of mental derangement that is pervading our country,” he said.