Why Nigeria is focus country for Malala Fund —Country Representative

HAVING a well implemented Child Rights Act (CRA) domesticated across all states in Nigeria will go a long way in addressing the issue of girls’ inaccessibility to quality education, the Country Representative of Malala Fund, Crystal Ikanih-Musa has said.

Ikanih-Musa while addressing journalists at a recent workshop in Kaduna, noted that the organisation’s advocacy beyond fighting for the girl child’s rights, is basically focused on helping to reduce the number of girls out of school by working with local partners to offer them education.

The Child Right Bill Advocacy Project (CRIBAP) workshop which was organised by a non-government organisation, Youthhub Africa, and funded by the Malala Fund was to train journalists on how to report issues of child abuses, as well as push for the domestication and implementation of the CRA across several states in the country.

“The Malala Fund focuses on helping girls attend school and get at least 12 years free, safe, quality and relevant education. We advocate for the millions of girls all over the world being denied a formal education because of social, economic, legal and political factors. We empower girls to raise their voices, to unlock their potential and to demand change. And in doing so, we partner with local organisations.

“So one of our countries of focus is Nigeria, as it is one of the countries with the largest number of girls out of school. So our focus here is to help decrease that number,” she said.

According to the UNESCO Institute of Statistics, in Nigeria, there are almost five and a half million girls not in school, making it one of the countries with the largest number of girls out of school, despite the important education gains in the country in recent decades.

Diverse reasons ranging from cultural differences, poverty, religious beliefs, among other practices largely influence girls’ accessibility to education, as well as the fundamental rights of every child. It is on this premise that the Child Rights Act (CRA) 2003 was enacted.

While the CRA considers a child as a person below the age of 18 years, it reflects that in every action concerning a child, whether undertaken by an individual, public or private body, institutions or service, court of law, or administrative or legislative authority, the best interest of the child shall be the primary consideration.

Twelve states: Kaduna, Kano, Enugu, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe, Gombe, Borno, Bauchi, Adamawa and Zamfara are yet to domesticate the child right bill, while for those that have passed the CRA into laws in their states, implementation is an issue.

Reacting to the gaps in laws across states in Nigeria, which seems to have aided the non-implementation of the CRA, Ikanih-Musa said “once we did our advocacy strategy for Nigeria, we realised that there are some policy reforms that need to be made. For instance, with the CRIBAP workshop, the CRA is a big law that we are pushing as one of our objectives to get adopted into states that are yet to adopt it, because it definitely has a positive effect on the girl-child education. For example it helps in delaying marriage and statistics show that delaying marriage for girls helps them finish school. So that is one of the policy reforms that we are monitoring.”

While journalists were selected from Kaduna, Kano, Sokoto, Kebbi and Oyo for the CRIBAP workshop and trained on developing media contents to create awareness and advocate for the passage and enforcement of the child right bill in the states, Executive Director, Youthhub Africa, Rotimi Olawale, noted that this was to ensure that the CRA becomes a thing of national priority.

“Over the years, only 24 states in Nigeria have passed various laws on CRA, with 12 states yet to do that. So the basis of the workshop is to have a discussion specifically focused on the states that are yet to pass the law and to see if we can push some action to ensure that the bill is passed into law in the states.

“We have come to understand that government responds to pressure and the media are opinion shapers. So we are working with the media and local organisations in the states, to carry out advocacy and awareness initiatives to inform people of the importance of the child rights law and for it to come to the front burner of social discussions in the states,” he said.