Thursday May 8, 2025 |
The federal government has restated its commitment to ending violence against children, women, and vulnerable groups.
Minister of Women Affairs Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim made the recommitment at the kickoff of the two-day Regional Meeting of Pathfinder African Countries on the Global Alliance to End Violence Against Children in Abuja on Wednesday, May 7, where she outlined Nigeria’s progress since the Ministerial Conference in Bogotá, Colombia, in November 2024, where the country committed to eradicating harmful practices in at least 18 states by 2028, TheSUN reports.
She added that Nigeria is also reviewing and enforcing the Child Rights Act of 2003 and the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act to strengthen protection mechanisms.
Sulaiman-Ibrahim emphasised that under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Nigeria is taking real action by reforming legal frameworks, scaling up the Safe Schools Programme, expanding parenting interventions, and increasing budgetary allocations to child protection systems.
He explained that the country is also integrating child protection into key national priorities such as climate resilience, education, digital safety, and social protection.
She noted that Nigeria is reviewing its national child policy framework and implementing the National Strategy and Costed Action Plan to End Child Marriage to ensure more inclusive, accountable, and data-driven action.
The minister commended the Pathfinder Initiative and partners, especially UNICEF, for their steadfast support. She also acknowledged the efforts of governments and stakeholders across the represented countries for their commitment to child protection.
She urged participants to go beyond policy declarations to deliver measurable, time-bound results, stressing the need to adequately resource child protection systems.
“No child, anywhere on this continent, should be invisible to the law or forgotten by policy,” she said.
Earlier, the United Nations urged African leaders to move beyond commitments and ensure concrete actions to protect children from violence and exploitation.
UN Special Representative on Violence Against Children, Najat M’jid, made the call in Abuja at the ongoing meeting.
She noted the collective commitment of African nations, underlining that it was not enough to make pledges, and urged participants to focus on peer learning, sharing effective strategies, and overcoming common obstacles to ensure child protection efforts are sustainable.
She said the struggle to secure funding, urging governments to treat child protection as an investment, not an added cost.
“We have wonderful plans, but when we arrive at the budget, it becomes a crazy task,” she said, urging countries to view child protection as an investment, not an expense.
The Pathfinding Global Alliance on Ending Violence Against Children was launched in Bogota in November 2024 to serve as a policy framework to accelerate action through multi-stakeholder collaboration, context-specific priorities, peer-to-peer learning, and national leadership.
As of March 2025, 42 countries, including Nigeria, have joined the Alliance, including 14 African countries.
