Succour to the crippling future

A review of Daniel Ayodele Agbaje’s Help for the Helpless: Understanding The Various Facets Of Child Abuse In Africa.

THE scopes of child abuse are enormous hence the difficulty in getting one acceptable definition for it. It is common to see authors defining child abuse using its types, which are also fragmented into sub-types. For example, emotional abuse has been expanded to include acts such as verbal abuse, belittlement, terrorising a child, and lack of nurturance or emotional availability by parents. Age, sex, and culture are factors that are making the definition of child abuse difficult. A three-year old child is grossly abused if left alone for more than four hours whereas this cannot be the case for a 12-year old child who is also left alone for the same number of hours.

Child Abuse is a global issue that is silently crippling the growth and development of any nation. The word, ‘Child’ is symbolic! It means the future. When a child is abused, logically the future is crippled.  Owing to the pandemic nature of the issue and its attendant tragic consequences, conventional wisdom demands any author, who wants to write a book on it to approach it holistically. The book, ‘Help for the Helpless’, written objectively by Daniel Ayodele Agbaje and published in 2022 by OAK Initiative, Nigeria lends credence to this and provides succour to the crippling future.

The 103-page seminal book is divided into six distinct chapters with each chapter dealing with uniquely different topics. The preface, which is outside the chapters, reveals the purpose of this evidenced-based research work and what the reader should expect in it.

The Manifestation of Child Abuse in Africa in chapter one supports the motion that the issue is difficult to define, hence the author also uses its types to explain the possible ways a child could be abused. One thing that is crystal clear in this chapter is the fact that ‘Neglect’ has a different clothing from other forms of abuse. While others wear the garment of commission, ‘Neglect’ has omission as its apparel. Other forms of child abuse manifest because of what the parents are doing wrongly to the child whereas ‘Neglect’ occurs when the parents are not doing those essential things of life that the child deserves. In this chapter, the author expertly delves on sub-types, ways of occurrence and consequences of all the forms of child abuse. The story of motherless Nana and Malik who were later grossly maltreated by their stepmother rounds off this chapter.

Child Abuse and Maltreatment in African Domestic Settings in chapter two x-rays the dearth of knowledge as a possible cause of child abuse in Africa. Most times, the childhood is always stolen from the child because of the expectation that s/he should contribute to the family’s income. The author enumerates and discusses 11 factors that contribute to Child Abuse in a typical African home. The factors are, inadequate knowledge of child development, parents under stress, marital problems, poverty, family history of abuse, physical health challenges of parents, substance abuse, parent’s old age, family Size and child characteristics. The author also uses the chapter to identify harmful cultural practices that contribute to Child Abuse and five ways of preventing them.

In chapter three, the author focuses on Child Marriage, Teenage Pregnancy and Female Genital Mutilation. He diligently defines the three issues and discusses their causes and consequences. He highlights seven steps towards protecting African girls from sexual abuse. The steps are anchored on education, awareness and legal advocacy.

Chapter four would remind the reader about the criminal exploits of Charles Taylor of Liberia and Foday Sankoh of Sierra Leone in using children as foot/toy soldiers during the civil war in both countries. Insurgents in Northern Nigeria have also converted some idle children into suicide bombers. The author, using the UNICEF lens, enumerates six grave violations committed against children during armed conflicts. They include killing and maiming of children, use of children in armed groups, attacks on schools or hospitals, rape or other grave sexual violence, abduction of children and denial of humanitarian access.

In the last chapter, the author excellently proffers various strategies for solutions to the menace of child abuse as parting gifts to the reader.