Legal Nigeria

Women lawyers move to include child rights acts in school curriculum

By Joy Baba-Yesufu

School Children at the Freetown Secondary School for girls stand in line on their first day back at school in Freetown on October 5, 2020. – Schools in Sierra Leone have been closed for the last six months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Saidu BAH / AFP)

The International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) has said it is making efforts to ensure that the Child Rights Acts (CRA) is included in school curriculums so that young children also know their rights early in life.https://7c900cb2c50e911cb0807d94490f2763.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.htmlhttps://7c900cb2c50e911cb0807d94490f2763.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html

Chairperson, FIDA Abuja chapter, Mrs Racheal Adejoh Andrew made this known during a visit to the Karu orphanage home Abuja to celebrate the 2021 children’s day.

She said FIDA has simplified the act in a very friendly manner that is readable to all children, maintaining that this will help them defend their rights as they grow older.

According to her “FIDA has simplified the act in a very friendly manner that is readable to all children. We have been going to different schools to make them know the provisions of the child right act, because what you don’t know you cannot take advantage of them.

“Because they are children first and foremost, they should know what the law says about their rights and then for caregivers, for mothers, for people like you and I, we are there to protect these children, we will not ignore them because their biological parents are not around them. We won’t allow their rights to be violated. And I think its in the spirit of their rights not being violated that the government took them off the streets and brought them to a home where they can have semblance of a home, have love, have care and protection”

Andrew further said that the essence of the visit to the orphanage home on this special month set aside to celebrate children is to show them love and make them feel loved.

“Basically, we are women lawyers, we are passionate about women and children, and it is our week and luckily, this year it fell within the children’s day and that is why we are here to celebrate with the children.

“Ordinarily you will think that they don’t have enough love. But because we are women, because we look after the interest of women and children, we thought that it is never too much to give love to children and that is why we are here today to celebrate the children’s day with them and to tell them that we are also their mothers, we are their sisters, some of us are grandmothers here so we are also their grandmothers. So we are showing them love”, she added.