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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