Showing posts with label Yinka Adeosun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yinka Adeosun. Show all posts

Friday, May 27, 2016

Beyond Children’s Parades And Promises

By Yinka Adeosun
Children Day, first proclaimed by the World Conference for the Wellbeing of Children in 1925 and then established universally in 1954, is celebrated each year to promote international togetherness, awareness among children worldwide, and improving children’s welfare. International Children’s Day has also been set aside by the United Nations to celebrate and honour children across the world every May 27. (Today is one of such remarkable days). 
It is recognised and celebrated on various days in many countries around the world. The day was created as part of efforts of the UN to protect children from dangerous situations in the society and as well to give every child the opportunity to acquire formal education. Significantly, it was set aside to highlight the dignity of children and their need for love, care and respect, and to also instill in them a sense of patriotism and national pride.
(Regrettably), the Nigerian child is an endangered species. She or he usually bears the impact of poverty, family problems, peer pressure, failed educational system, social and religious conflicts as well as violence and terrorism. At an early age, some children are given in marriage, thereby exposing them to sexually transmitted diseases and infections, many have been conscripted into foot soldiers, are victims of sexual slavery and all sorts of emotional torture.
Child abuse, child trafficking, child battery and exploitation are common realities in our society. It is sad that despite the information age, some cultures and practices in our country still make children vulnerable, disadvantaged and prone to abuse. Under-aged marriage is the norm in the North and child labour is not peculiar to the South alone.
Many of our children grow with bitterness for their country. Having watched the insincerity of the government to the plight of the child in comparison to the news of child bravery in other climes, many would prefer to stay away and fulfill their potentials in a clime that encourages them to do so. The tale of the Chibok girls, the kidnap of students of Barbington Macaulay Junior Seminary in Lagos and the plight of Ese Oruru are miniature compared to the many cases of child abuse and neglect in the Nigerian society.