The Mothers And Marginalised Advocacy Centre, MAMA Centre, commemorates the Children’s Day 2022 themed “A Better Future for Every Child”.
While we acknowledge and commend live-changing policy actions and well-meaning advocacy efforts devoted at all levels towards advancing children’s growth and development, we on this Day reiterate our commitment and support for a secured and prosperous future for Nigerian children through dedicated programmes and activities as well as strategic focus.
In the spirit of commendation, we unequivocally demand increased priority and genuine efforts to mitigate the unattended or lingering challenges threatening the cognitive and physical development as well as productive future of Nigerian children. This includes their rights to adequate nutrition status and education, as enshrined in the Child Right Act.
We are not unaware of the existing policy laxity towards the reported cases of malnutrition and Severe Acute Malnutrition among children under-5 in Nigeria, manifesting in poor physical and cognitive development like stunting, wasting, underweight, overweight and low productivity.
Despite the global warning that malnutrition constitutes a critical developmental issue to the future and GDP of a nation, the nutrition budget continues to suffer from inadequate allocation and delayed release at all levels. Just as adoption and full implementation of Child Right Act is hindered by the deliberately imposed legislative or policy conditions in several states across Nigeria.
We are deeply worried by the growing education inequalities and incidence of out-of-school children with a recent report by UNICEF estimating 40% of Nigerian children in the North aged between six and 11, especially girls, do not attend any primary school; and the overall 10.5 million out-of-school children in Nigeria.
We are more concerned by the potential effects of these unfavourable indices on the children, who will be denied marketable skills, worthwhile employment, and meaningful contributions to the country’s development.
We on this note demand strengthened legislative oversight on existing nutrition policies implementation like National Policy on Food and Nutrition to promote holistic intervention on the prevention and treatment of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) as well as adequate budgetary allocation, cash-backing and timely release of nutrition funds to ensure sustained intervention.
We call for extensive legislative oversight on nutrition budgetary allocation; utilisation of Basic Health Care Provision Fund; and agricultural budgetary allocation for increased food accessibility, availability and accessibility at all levels.
We demand adoption and full implementation of the Child Right Act in all states, to provide every child with free, compulsory and universal basic education, while mandating every parent/guardian to ensure that his/her child or ward attends and completes primary school education and junior secondary education.
We stress our call for improved access to education, eliminating inequalities in education enrolment and attainment, proper orientation at individual levels as well as public awareness and sensitization on the provisions of the Child Right Act.