RAP- Nigeria is reminding the Federal Government of Nigeria of it's obligation under global and regional laws, remains at variance with maintaining Section 29 (4) (b). Sec 21 and Sec 22 of the Child’s Right Act of Nigeria 2003 (CRA) , which prohibits the marriage of a girl child or support any such act by an individual. It further provides for punishment for anyone involved in its promotion in Sec.23. In addition, Article 18 (3) of the African Charter on Human & Peoples Rights and Article 27 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child all prohibit girl child marriages. Article 16 of the Convention on Elimination of all Forms Discrimination against Women (CEDAW); Article 16 (2) of the Convention of the Rights of a Child (CRC) all abhor child marriages. The 1962 Convention of Consent to Marriage, Minimum Age for Marriage, and Registration of Marriages also advocate for the stipulation of minimum marriage age of the girl child (Article 1 and 2).
RAP Nigeria expects the governors of states who have not formally adopt and adapt the Act for domestication as state laws to be charged to court for violation of Child Rights Act 2003.....or the power given states exclusive responsibilities and jurisdiction to make laws relevant to their specific situations should be taken from state governments immediately This is because issues of child rights protection are on the residual list of the Nigeria constitution, State laws inimical to the rights of the child are also to be amended to conform to the Act and the Child Rights Convention. As their not passing the act is abuse of position / violation of Child Rights Act 2003 legislation
RAP- Nigeria strongly believe effects of Medical and Physiological , Cognitive and Intellectual; Psychosocial, Behavioural Consequences; Self-Destructive Behaviour, Depression, and Suicide Attempts befalls victims of Child marriage. These also befalls the Nigerian society at large if the Child's right 2003 is not adhered to by all states in Nigeria. These effects are revealed in the cases below by a senior lawyer at the International Federation of Women Lawyers in Kano, Ibrahim - dealing with amongst 54 cases related to child marriage which includes:
1) 12-year-old charged with attempted murder
2) 11-year-old who attempted suicide and ran away from home a week before she was due to marry a 45-year-old.
3) Maimuna Abdulmunini was just 13 when she was arrested for burning her 35-year-old husband to death.The legal process dragged out over five years. Finally in 2012, when she turned 18, Abdulmunini was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Today, despite a court ruling six months ago that the sentence is a violation of her rights, she is still on death row, waiting.
4) Wasila Tasi’u is 14 but has been in a prison in Gezawa, outside the city of Kano, for the last five months as of March 2015. She too faces the death penalty for allegedly murdering her 35-year-old husband, Umar Sani, and three others at her own wedding party.Soon after she was arrested, Tasi’u told her lawyer Hussaina Ibrahim that she had been tied to the bed and raped by Sani on their wedding night. When she appeared in Gezawa high court for the first time back in the autumn, she could barely say her own name, turning her back to the court when the charges were read, breaking down in tears. For Further reading visit .. The Guardian
RAP-Nigeria expects the Federal law enforcers to go after the parents who enforced any child marriage on their children as they are violating their child's fundamental human rights contained in Caption IV of the 1999 Constitution with specific focus on the children, and Child Rights Acts 2003 innovative and commendable responsibility of a child, parental responsibility, child justice and other important issues.the protective clause of prosecuting any person involved in the promotion of early marriage for girls under the age of 18 should be activated and individuals involved in it be prosecuted according to the law as stated in the Child Rights Act 2003, Section 23" A person—(a) who marries a child; or (b) to whom a child is betrothed; or (c) who promotes the marriage of a child; or (d) who betroths a child commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine of x500,000 (five hundred thousand Naira) or imprisonment for a term of five years or to both such fine and imprisonment. "
Even Jesus condemned it in Matthew 18:5-6 ...."And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me;
6but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea."
RAP-Nigeria can not begin to state how inhuman and disgraceful it is that some Nigerian politicians are Pedophiles and have a habit of marrying teenagers. Imagine a Nigerian Senator Ahmed Sani Yerima, representative for Zamfara West in northern Nigeria, made headlines back in 2010 when he married a 13-year-old Egyptian girl. Three years later he persuaded his fellow Senators to defeat a motion that would have removed a constitutional loophole that means girls under the age of 18 are considered adults as soon as they get married.
RAP Nigeria believes it is important for the Federal Government to review the different ages enshrined in a multitude of legal texts and in customary law all over the country, with a view to making a particular age workable for the purpose of implementing the Child Rights Act effectively. As varieties in the minimum age limit pose a lot of problem in the process of interpretation, thereby causing discrimination between children of same age in different parts of the country as below:
1) Child’s Right Act 2003 passed into law in the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja), defines a child as person who has not attained the age of eighteen (18) years.
2) However, according to Section Two of the Children and Young Person Act, enacted in Eastern, Western and Northern regions, a “child” means a person under the age of fourteen years, while “young person” means a person who has attained the age of fourteen years and is under the age of seventeen years.
3) the Immigration Act stipulates that any person below sixteen years is a minor.
4) whereas the Matrimonial Causes Act 1970 puts the age of maturity at 21years.15 The latter Act becomes irrelevant in practice, since the individual states their own age for marriage.
5) As for penal responsibility, Section 50 of the Penal Code (North) states: No act is an offence which is done by a child under seven years of age; or by a child above seven years of age but under twelve years of age who has not attained sufficient maturity of understanding to judge the nature and consequence of such act.
RAP- Nigeria believes legislative problems with the violation of Child Rights Act and why it has not been incorporated by all states is a failure of Nigeria to legislate the Child’s Right Convention effectively and failure to educate her citizens on human rights generally and child rights specifically. Nigeria’s signature of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights puts an obligation on her to disseminate, display, and incorporate human rights in institutions of learning, which seem not to have been accomplished up till now. That is why RAP- Nigeria has taken an obligation to raise awareness to Nigerians and going into schools to educate children on human rights as expressed in articles 4,7,19 and 29 which Nigerian government has shunned with impunity. The rights of the child can no longer be negotiated away in the name of culture or political interest if the condition of the Nigerian child is to change. The protection and promotion of the rights of the child secure a future for such a child as well as the nation at large.
RAP-Nigeria is calling on Federal Government of Nigeria to make a serious commitment to the letter of her legal obligation to protect child rights, having signed and ratified the Child’s Right Convention. With evidences of Child marriages, child abuse ,activities that involve child labor and trafficking going on in Nigeria today, Nigeria has not only failed to ratify the Child Rights Convention effectively but also failed in the spirit of the Convention. No law can be better than Child’s Right Act 2003 implementation,as it seeks to cover practically all issues of civil and criminal law relating to children emphasising its importance even at the local level, thus, there is urgent need for quick and effective implementation, and awareness raised in support to full realization by embodied Federal/state government; parents and individuals ; non-governmental organizations as RAP-Nigeria.
By RAP Founder
Further reading on Knowing Child Rights Act 2003 is on below
