By: Mukhtar Garba Kobi (08185113672)
Apparently, children are indeed blessings in disguised to lucky set of married couples as million of others that have none are always spending a lot going from one hospital to another to medically sort-out whats hindering their procreations. To be blessed with a pious child is far better than to be given a gift of cash, money come and go while parents even if they are no longer alive benefit from their well-trained children; through frequent prayers to their departed souls. Obviously, some parents that are endowed with children are in recent times lackadaisical to their parental responsibilities like provision of nutritious balanced diet, suitable clothes for different seasons, paying medical bills, terminal payment of schools fees and above all putting them on right track through inculcation of essential traditions and good morals.
Today should be a special day all responsible parents to be proud of irrespective of genders, physical state or conditions of their children, it is therefore a day children are celebrated in Nigeria. Most parents especially those living in cities take advantage of the day because it is a public holiday to have fun with their kids at amusement parks, hotels and other recreational sites. It is the opposite to abandoned children, those from poor homes as those parents spend whole day struggling to bring food to the tables talkless of spending few hours for celebration. Moreover, it is a known tradition in villages especially in northern part of Nigeria underage children are sent to far places or cities in the name of seeking religious education, they spend years without seeing their biological parents, sadly, in most times they beg food or work in brothels for prostitutes to survive.
The rate of children force to hawk commodities on streets are increasing on daily basis, one Nigerian according to a research is living under one dollar per day, one dollar is now equivalent to 750 which is not enough for a full-grown man to feed on talkless of others in his custody. Inflation in the price of food stuffs and high level of poverty have left a lot of parents with no choice than to send their teenage children to work as houseboys or house-maids in the homes of rich individuals; the cases of rapes by rich men or their teenage sons have ruined the lives of limitless number of girls. When a girl is raped, she suffers throughout her lifetime, people in communities discriminate, insult and distance themselves or their children from her on the act she has no control over. Victims of rape after marriages end-up as patients of Vasio Vaginal Fistula (VVF) during child-birth.
Prevalent abuses of children’s rights and freedoms are the reasons why some of them are not performing excellently in schools. Some children are born with silver spoons, hence they lack nothing that make life better but they are emotionally abused by locking them up at homes all the times but such parents tend to forget that violent media contents, pornographic videos and social media platforms have tendency of bastardising parents’ years of trainings in few minutes. Some of the known violences on children includes female circumcision, social norms, early child marriages, weak enforcement of the law, passiveness of activists in cases that involve high profile personalities, uncontrolled birth of children and host of others; therefore the few the number of children parents have, the higher the chances of meeting up majority of their demands.
In summary, there is paramount need for parents whose children are molested, abused or killed to be coming out and fight for their rights; silences of victims or their parents are the rationale why perpetrators doing more, so speak out for justice to be done. Initially, parents even if they are earning little should be trying their best in providing essentials of life to their family members, find time to converse with wives and children; doing this would make husbands know the need and wants of people under them. Human right activists and other stakeholders should be actively helping children whose fundamental freedoms are infringed no matter who or whose son did it as everyone deserved justice. Reported cases of children abuses are just few compared to those covered-up, therefore, synergy and collaboration among children, authorities, parents and the stream media should be gummed for continous orientation about dangers of child abuse and taking doers to courts; that would serve as deterrent to others.
HAPPY CHILDREN DAY TO ALL CHILDREN ACROSS THE WORLD
Ummusalma Abdullahi
June 9, 2022 at 9:34 am
Incredible and billsful article