LAGOS BANS HAWKING BY CHILDREN DURING SCHOOL HOURS



The Lagos State Government on Thursday said street hawking during school hours would no longer be tolerated in the state. The Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Mrs. Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, said this was the only way to ensure that children of school age are regular and punctual at school during lesson hours.

According to her, the state would henceforth begin to sensitise parents on the need to send their children to school, while law enforcement agents would also be sensitised to arrest errant parents in order to prosecute them to serve as a deterrent to others.


She said, "Education and proper upbringing of our children is the only way to eradicate poverty. The law forbids the use of under-aged children for domestic labour, negligence and maltreatment on the part of parents and guardians as it negates the tenets of the Child Rights law.

"The Lagos State Government through the various agencies of government will ensure the survival, development and protection of all the children in the state, the laws will be enforced to the letter in order to ensure that all the rights of our children are protected."

Orelope-Adefulire, who decried the high rate of child intimate abuse in the country, noted that the problem though universal, had become alarming.

She said, "Therefore, increased attention, efficient protection skills and preventive measures are necessary at family, local, national and international levels.

"My ministry collaborates with the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and Other Related Matters on issues bordering on women and child trafficking.

"The ministry has embarked on the construction of a shelter for trafficked women and children at Ayobo.

"After a long period of silence, child intimate abuse is being more denounced and becoming a public and political issue."

The commissioner noted that her ministry had decided to produce a simplified version of the Child Rights Law 'so that no one tramples on these rights."

In a related development, the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mrs. Risikat Akiode, has said the ministry is ready to prosecute anyone who abused the fundamental rights of children.

Akiode said awareness would be created among children in the state on their rights. "We will educate them to say no to child intimate abuse and where their rights are being abused, to know the appropriate channel to seek redress," she said.

She said it was a pity that many children who had been sexually abused were dying in silence because of the social stigma attached to survivors of the illicit act.

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