Letters

Protecting children from drug-trafficking parents

The rate at which women are involved in the illicit trade of drug trafficking is alarming and should be a subject of concern to the Nigerian public.

In the past three months, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) announced the arrest of an unprecedented number of female suspects.

These women are among a list of women arrested by NDLEA in the past three months.

What is appalling about their situation is that they conducted their illicit businesses in their homes, where they lived with their children.

This should be of concern to Nigerians. We should start pondering: what kind of children are these women raising? Again, this raft of arrests of female traffickers should also turn our attention to the possibility that not all teenagers picked drug abuse or drug trafficking habits from friends and peers. Some of them actually ‘inherited’ the habit from their families. If a mother or father sells cannabis or any other illicit drugs for a living, what is the possibility that the child will deviate from the ‘family business’? What is the possibility that the child will not end up as a user?

This is not about women alone but about parents in general. It is disheartening to see fathers and grandfathers dealing in drugs. Do we seriously expect their offspring not to be interested in the livelihood of their parents?

As a society, the onus is on us to protect the rights of the child, and this includes looking out for their wellbeing and ensuring that they grow up in a wholesome environment where they will not be introduced to abnormal behaviour by their families.

The NDLEA should expand its War Against Drug Abuse (WADA) advocacy campaign to target community leaders, religious leaders, and teachers to further amplify the message to parents to think about the future of their offspring before venturing into the trade and trafficking of illicit substances.