5,000 child labourers in Ogun,says NGO

A child rights group, Child Protection Network, on Monday said  over 5,000 child labourers worked in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.

The CPN also said there had been an increase in the number of street children in different parts of the state.

The group’s coordinator, Mrs. Peju Osoba, said this while speaking at a sensitisation workshop organised by the state Ministry of Information and Strategy in conjunction with the United Nations Children’s Fund to mark the 2013 Day of the African Child at the Nigeria Union of Journalists Hall, in Abeokuta.

Osoba said 50 per cent of the shops in major markets in the state capital had been found to engage child labourers.

“There are child labourers in 50 per cent of shops in major markets of Abeokuta, Lafenwa, Kuto and Omida, and 25 per cent of these shops are owned by the elite, especially civil servants and/or their spouses.

“There is an emerging trend of increasing number of street children in different locations in Ogun State. CPN is working with over 100 of them in Lafenwa alone. There are over 5,000 child domestics in Abeokuta alone,” she said.

She added that the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation recently released a report stating that Nigeria has the highest number of out-of school children.

The CPN coordinator stressed that every child worker in Nigeria “is highly vulnerable to abuse, irrespective of where he or she lives and with whomever.”

Osoba explained that Ogun was the first state in the country to domesticate the Child’s Rights law in 2004 but expressed regret that the law was not completely passed.

She appealed to the Ogun State House of Assembly to expedite action on the passage of the Child Rights Bill and called on the state government to make education free and effective.

Also speaking on behalf of a Non-Governmental Organisation, Inter African Committee, Mrs. Funmilayo Gbogboade, said 101 million girls of 10 years and above in Africa had been subjected to Female Gender Mutilation.

Culled from http://www.punchng.com