By ADEROGBA GEORGE

The National Child Rights Implementation Committee (NCRIC) has expressed readiness to push for the harmonisation of the provision of Child Rights Convention (CRC) 1989 and the Child Rights Act (CRA).

Dr MacJohn Nwobiala, the Co-Chair of the committee, stated that the idea was to further protect and promote the rights of the Nigerian child, which he said had always been abused.

The co-chair spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja after reviewing activities of the 8^th quarterly meeting of NCRIC, which focused on the aim of writing periodic reports on the rights of the child.

NAN reports that Nigeria is one of the 196 countries that has so far ratified the Child Rights Convention as at October 2015.

It is expected to submit periodic report to the United Nations (UN) Committee on Children’s Rights.

Meanwhile, Nwobiala said Nigeria had always defaulted in writing the periodic reports on the protection and promotion of the rights of children in the country.

He said the eight quarterly meeting of the committee was the second of its kind, focusing on the aim of compiling the fifth, sixth, seventh and eight periodic report about the protection and promotion of rights of children in the country.

“Today’s meeting is the 8^th quarterly meeting of the National Child Rights Implementation Committee (NCRIC); it is an important meeting; it is the second meeting where we are focusing on the production, or you may say writing of Nigeria’s 5^th, 6^th, 7^th and 8^th Periodic report.

“For several years, Nigeria has been on default, and we see the production of this combined report as something that is very important, not just for the children of Nigerians but also for the image of the country.

Nigeria had signed and ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Union Convention and Child Charter on the rights of the African Child.

“We feel that this defaulting does not go well with the country’s reputation, it is not proper, it is not fair for us to continue to default, so today’s meeting focused on the production of the reports.

“Today we took general overview of the report and then we went into specifics, we looked at the methodology for producing the reports because the reports have to take into consideration the input from all stakeholders.

“These stakeholders include the children themselves, States Child Rights Committees, ministries of education, health, and justice and other key federal offices like National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), National Population Commission (NPC) and NGOs.

“We looked at methodology used in gathering this report; we also looked at the time frame, work plan in times of timeliness, and distribution of responsibilities.

“We also looked at the structure of the report; we identified core agencies both at national, state and at sub community levels; those agencies like UNICEF that will make input into the report, on how to link up with them,” Nwabiola said.

The co-chair, however, expressed his dissatisfaction with non presence of relevant stakeholders at the day’s meeting, saying members needed to turn a new leaf and make the committee more visible.

He said there was need to review the operational modality of the committee, now that people at the authority were looking up to the committee to turn things around about the promotion of the rights of Nigeria’s child.

He said that the committee already had a draft work plan for the year 2024 while urging members to brace up to the responsibilities.

Nwabiola called on government, private sector, NGOs, parents and teachers, to unite and work as a team, to protect the rights of children, saying children were from God and their rights must be protected.

He decried the rising cases of child abuse because of the economic situation of the country, adding that child marriage and out-of-school children were still on the high side. (NAN)

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