FCTA arraigns seven guardians over child abuse

ABOUT seven people are standing trial before the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) family court for various child abuse offences.

Director, Gender Department, Social Development Secretariat (SDS), Dr Agnes Hart, who disclosed this while interrogating some guardians alleged to have assaulted minors in their care, expressed worry over the increasing rate of the incident in the territory.

She said the department entertains an average of four assault cases every week.

Dr Hart warned that the full weight of the law would be applied to anyone found guilty of abusing other people, especially children, saying the FCT administration has zero-tolerance for any form of abuse on any resident.

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According to her: “Here in the FCT, we have a sexual and gender-based response team, and we have zero tolerance to any form of abuse against any resident, let alone violence on a child.

“Nobody in the FCT can molest a child and go scot-free. The Child Right Act 2003 is very clear on that, every child has the right to life, right to quality education, right to healthcare and other fundamental human rights as enshrined in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and we are here to protect the interest if the child to the later.

“This week alone, we have received four cases of child abuse and violence against children and this has been the trend. Presently, we have seven such cases in the FCT family court and we are going to follow through with all of such cases.” She declared.

Earlier, some guardians, Mr and Mrs Moses Onoja and Mrs Ada Okamba were paraded for allegedly assaulting and inflicting serious injuries on a 10-year old Precious and 14-year old Chineye Nwoka respectively.

The victims were both noticed by their teachers who reported the assault to the FCT Gender Department.