The rate of children forced 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 1,200+ which is not enough for a full-grown man to feed on talkless of others in his custody.
Apparently, children are indeed blessings in disguised to lucky set of married couples as millions of others that have none are always spending a lot going from one hospital to another to medically sort-out what’s hindering their procreation. 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 fervent frequent prayers to their departed souls. Obviously, some parents are endowed with children but lately are passive to their parental responsibilities such as 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.
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Today supposed to be a special day that all responsible parents should be proud of irrespective of genders, physical states or conditions of their children. It is therefore a day children are celebrated in Nigeria and other countries. 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, game reserves and other recreational sites. Moreover, it is the opposite to the abandoned children, those from poor homes suffered so much as parents spend whole day struggling to bring food to the tables talkless of spending few hours for celebration. Factually, it is a known tradition in villages especially in Northern part of Nigeria that underage children are sent to far places or cities in the name of seeking religious education. They spend months or years without contact or seeing their biological parents, sadly, in most times they beg food or survive through working as errand boys in brothels .
The rate of children forced 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 1,200+ which is not enough for a full-grown man to feed on talkless of others in his custody. Inflation to the prices of food stuffs and high level of poverty have left 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 over the act she has no control over. Victims of rape after marriages end-up as patients of Vasio Vaginal Fistula (VVF) during child-birth and hatred from husbands.
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 while 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. The fewer the number of children parents have, the higher the chances of meeting up majority of their demands whereas the higher the children, the more insatiable demands.
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In summary, there is paramount need for parents whose children are molested, abused or killed to be fearless, come out and fight for their rights; silences of victims or their parents are the rationales why perpetrators are doing more, so speak out for justice to be done. Initially, even if parents are earning less, they should be trying their best in providing essentials of life to their family members, find time to interact with wives and children; doing this would make husbands know the need and problems of people under his care and how to tackle them. Human right activists and other stakeholders should be actively assisting 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 those with intention of harming or abusing children.
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HAPPY CHILDREN’S DAY TO ALL CHILDREN ACROSS THE WORLD
