chidren’s right

There is no universally accepted legal definition of a child and the word child may depend on the context in which it appears. In the Criminal Code, a child is merely described for the purpose of liability for murder. Under the Marriage Act, a person is considered a child for the purpose of marriage if he or she is below 21 years of age. Under Article II of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, a child means every human being below the age of 18 years. Article I of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as being every human being below the age of 18 years unless, under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier. According to Section 277 of the Child’s Rights Act, a child means a person under the age of 18 years while the Children and Young Persons Act in Section 2 defines a child as a person under the age of fourteen and a young person as a person who has attained the age of seventeen years.

Summarily, the rights provided for in the Child’s Rights Act to ensure the protection and welfare of the child includes the following:

a. Right to life, survival and development.

b. Right to a name, nationality, privacy and family life.

c. Freedom of association and peaceful assembly in conformity with the law and in accordance with the direction of a child’s parents.

d. Freedom of thought, conscience and religion subject to parental direction especially when adoption, fostering, guardianship or custody is in issue.

e. Freedom of movement subject to parental control.

f. Right to leisure, recreation and cultural activities.

g. Right to health and health services, parental care, free compulsory and universal primary education.

h. Freedom from discrimination merely by reason of his belonging to a particular community, ethnic group, sex, religion and circumstances of birth.

i. Respect for dignity of person which implies that the child shall not be subjected to physical, mental, emotional injury, abuse, torture, inhumane or degrading treatment, servitude, slavery or other debasing facts.

Some key provisions pf the Child’s Rights Act are as follows:

a. No child shall be subjected to mental, emotional injury, abuse, torture, inhumane or degrading treatment and attacks on his or her honor or reputation.

b. Betrothal and marriage of children are prohibited.

c. Every child is entitled to rest, leisure and enjoyment of the best attainable state of physical, mental and spiritual health.

d. Every government in Nigeria shall strive to reduce infant mortality rate, provide medical and healthcare, adequate nutrition and safe drinking water, hygienic and sanitized environments, combat diseases and malnutrition, support and mobilize through local and community resources, the development of primary health care for children.

e. Expectant and nursing mothers shall be catered for, and every parent or guardian having legal custody of a child under the age of two years shall ensure the child’s immunization against disease or face judicial penalties.

f. Provisions for children in need of special protection measures, that is, mentally, physically challenged or street children and their protection in a manner that would enable them achieve their fullest possible social integration and moral development.

g. Causing tattoos or marks and female genital mutilation are punishable offences under the Act, so also is the exposure to pornographic materials, trafficking of children, their use of narcotic drugs, or the use of children in any criminal activities, abduction and unlawful removal or transfer from lawful custody, and employment of children as domestic helps outside their own homes or family environment.

h. Buying, selling, hiring or otherwise dealing in children for the purpose of begging, hawking, prostitution or for unlawful immoral purposes is punishable under the Act by imprisonment.

i. Child abduction and forced exploitative labor which is not of a light nature or in industrial undertaking is punishable under the Act. Exceptions are where the child is employed by a family member, in work that is of an agricultural or horticultural or domestic in nature, and if such is not required to carry or move anything heavy that is likely to adversely affect its moral, mental, physical, spiritual or social development.

j. The Act also preserves the continued application of all criminal law provisions securing the protection of a child whether born or unborn.

The corresponding obligations of a child under the Child’s Rights Act are working towards the cohesion of their families, respecting their parents and elders, placing their physical and intellectual capabilities at the service of the state, contributing to the moral well-being of the society, strengthening social and national solidarity, preserving the independence and integrity of the country, respecting the ideals of freedom, equality, humaneness, and justice for all persons, relating to others in the spirit of tolerance, dialogue and consultation and contributing to the best of their abilities solidarity with and unity with Africa and the world at large.

Parents, guardians, institutions and authorities in whose care children are placed are mandated to provide the necessary guidance, education and training to enable the children live up to these responsibilities.

The Child’s Rights Act in Section 149 makes provision for the establishment of Family Court with unlimited jurisdiction to hear and determine all cases in which the existence of a legal righty, power, duty, liability, privilege, interest, obligation or claim in respect of a child is in issue and in any criminal proceedings relating thereto.

The Family Court by the provisions of the Act has two levels, the court as a division of the High Court at the High Court level, and the court as a Magistrate Court, at the Magistrate level. Section 150 Child’s Rights Act.

A child becomes a person capable of being killed when it has proceeded in a living state from the body of its mother, whether it has breathed or not and whether it has an independent circulation or not, and whether the navel string is severed or not. Section 307 Criminal Code Act.

When a child dies in consequence of an act done by any person before or during its birth, the person who did or omitted to do such act is deemed to have killed the child and this amounts to the crime of murder or manslaughter as the case may be under the Criminal Code.

The betrothal of and marriage of children is prohibited by the law. Section 21 of the Child’s Rights Act prohibits child marriage, Section 22 prohibits child betrothal and Section 23 prescribes the punishment for child marriage and betrothal which is imprisonment for a term of five years, liability to a fine of five hundred thousand naira or both. It must be noted that child marriage is permitted under some religions. The question becomes whether what is prohibited by the law can be allowed under the guise of religion. By Section 1(1) of the Nigerian Constitution, the Constitution which is the grundnorm and from which other laws obtain their validity is supreme and any law which is inconsistent with its provisions is null and void. Therefore, child marriage as a practice under a religion is an offence as it is contrary to the provisions of the law.

Under Section 14 of the Children and Young Persons Act, where a child or young person is found guilty in court of an offence, the court is given a considerable range of options for dealing favorably with such offender which are:

a. By dismissing the charge.

b. By discharging the offender on his entering into recognizance.

c. By discharging the offender and placing him under the supervision of a probation officer.

d. By committing the child offender by means of a corrective order to the care of a relative or other fit person.

e. By sending the offender by means of a corrective order to an approved institution.

f. By ordering the offender to be caned.

g. By ordering the offender to pay fine, damages or cost.

h. By ordering the parent or the guardian of the offender to pay a fine, damages or cost.

i. By ordering the parent or guardian of the offender to give security for his good behavior,

j. By committing the offender to custody in a palace of detention provided under the law.

k. Where the offender is a young person, by dealing with the case in any other manner in which it may be legally dealt with.