Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer

Vol. 2 No. 1 (2023)

Articles

A critical legal analysis of the child rights act 2003 and it’s implementation in Nigeria under the united nation’s convention for the rights of the child

Published 2023-02-16

  • Akuchie Henry A1
    • ,
  • Akuchie C. Chika

Akuchie Henry A1
College of Law, Gregory University, Uturu, Abia State, Nigeria

Akuchie C. Chika
Summit Law Chambers, Minna, Niger State, Nigeria

Abstract

There is no doubt that considerable milestone has been reached in the pursuit of child protection in Nigeria. Countries hurriedly adapt, adopt and domesticate child protection instruments and wave it as diplomatic trophies. However, child rights goes beyond politics and diplomatic correctness. In this paper the authors critically analyzed the challenges and prospects in child rights implementation in the Nigerian legal system. Unlike the case of Nigeria where the Constitution did not specifically provide for Child rights, the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa made provision for child rights tailored after the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) with regard to the definition of a child as a person under the age of 18 years. The paper began this analysis with a critical examination of the legal framework of child rights law in Nigeria and the level of its implementation. The paper offered solutions/recommendations to the myriad of challenges/problems hindering the effective implementation of the child rights laws in Nigeria.

Keywords

child-rights, human-rights, protection, vulnerable, disability, child-welfare, constitution, charter

PDF

References

  1. The convention on the Rights of the child is the most rapidly and widely ratified human rights treaty in history with 194 countries as “state parties”. The only countries that have not ratified the treaty are Somalia, South Sudan and the United States of America. www.hrw.org/news/2014/17/11/25thAnniversary-convention-rights-of-the-child accessed 8/02/2021. Somalia has ratified the convention on the Rights of the child. It is only United States of America and South Sudan remaining.
  2. History of the Rights of the Child www.bice.org/en/history of the rights of the child accessed 25th Jan, 2021.
  3. Ibid
  4. Ihua-Maduenyi, F ‘Considering the Best Interests of a Child in a Multi-Cultural Civil Society with Special Reference to Nigeria (Thesis) https/Ira/ie/ac/UK accessed 20th February, 2021.
  5. Fortin J, (2009) Children’s Rights and the Developing Law, (3rd ed. CUP).
  6. Julia Sloth-Nielsen: (2016) Children’s Rights in Africa: A legal perspective, Routledge, also available at https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/35590637 accessed 17/02/2021).
  7. Ihua-Maduenyi, F supra.
  8. Harris Short: Listening to the other side? the convention on the rights of the child. www.law.unimelb.edu.au.assets(pdf) accessed 26th January, 2021.
  9. Ihua-Madueyi, F supra.
  10. Viljoen, F (2001) ‘Africa’s contribution to the development of international human rights and humanitarian law ahrlj, vol.1, no.1, (cited in Ihua-Madueyi: Considering the Best Interests of a Child in a Multi-Cultural Civil Society with Special Reference to Nigeria (Thesis) https/Ira/ie/ac/UK accessed 26th January, 2021).
  11. Art. 21(2) read within Art 2 of African Children’s Charter.
  12. Art.1 UNCRC
  13. Viljoen F. (2001) Africa's contribution to the development of International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. 1 AHRLJ 18-39 http://www.ahrlj.up.ac.za/viljoen-f (accessed 6/02/2021).
  14. Ihua-Maduenyi, F supra
  15. Supra
  16. Art. 31 ACRWC
  17. Viljoen supra
  18. Ibid Ihua-Maduenyi
  19. Ibid
  20. Gillick v. West Norfolk & Wisbach AHA{1986}AC 112(House of Lords)
  21. https://news.un.org/en/story/2015/-un-lauds-somalia-country-ratifies-landmark-childrens-rights-treaty accessed 6/02/2021.
  22. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, with a Preamble and 54 articles, was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on November 20, 1989, and entered into force on September 2, 1990. G.A. Res. 44/25, annex, 44 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 49) at 167, U.N. Doc. A/44/49 (1989); 28 I.L.M. 1448 (1989). For an online text, see the OHCHR Web site, http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm (accessed 6/02/2021); it includes the 1995 amendment to article 43, paragraph 2 (G.A. Res. 50/155 (Dec. 21, 1995)), which entered into force on November 18, 2002. For the status of signatures, ratifications, and accessions, available at the OHCHR Web site, http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/ratification/11.htm (accessed 6/02/2021).
  23. The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, with a Preamble and 48 articles, was adopted on July 11, 1990, and entered into force on November 29, 1999. For an online text, see the African Union Web site, http://www.africa-union.org/official_documents/Treaties on the child (PDF) (last visited 12/02/2021) (unofficial source). For a list of signatures, ratifications, and accessions, available http://www.pdf (PDF) (last visited 12/02/2021).
  24. National Child protection consultant on violence against children in schools, Abuja. https.www.unicef.org/Nigeria/about_12122html (accessed 7/02/2021).
  25. Summary of Child Care Act, no 74 of 1983-ESST-OSS Africa www.ossafrica.com/esst/index.php?title=problems (accessed 28/08/2020).
  26. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 200 of 1993 (hereafter referred to as the Interim Constitution) came into force on the 27th April 1994. It effected radical changes in the sense that henceforth the franchise and associated political and civil rights would be accorded to all citizens without racial qualification and the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty was now replaced by the doctrine of constitutional supremacy. The Interim Constitution was formally adopted as an Act of the pre-democratic Tri-cameral Parliament and was only meant to be a transitional Constitution. One of its principal purposes was to set out the procedures for the negotiation and drafting of a final Constitution. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 108 of 1996 (hereafter referred to as the Constitution) completes the negotiated revolution. The Constitution was drafted and adopted by an elected Constitutional Assembly which had been given two years to produce a constitution that coformed to 34 constitutional principles that had been agreed upon during the pre-1993 political negotiations. In Ex parte Chairperson of the Constitutional Assembly: in re Certification of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996 (First Certification judgment) 1996 4 SA 744 (CC) the Constitutional Court refused to certify that the Constitution conformed to the said principles and it was only in the so-called Second Certification judgment 1997 2 SA 97 (CC) that the Constitutional Court was prepared to find that the text was consistent with the constitutional principles. The Constitution was signed into law by President Nelson Mandela at Sharpeville on 4 February 1997. See De Waal, Currie & Erasmus The Bill of Rights Handbook (4th ed) ch 1 (hereafter referred to as De Waal et al). In the preamble to the Constitution it is specifically stated that the injustices of the country’s past are recognized and that the Constitution is adopted as the supreme law of the country so as theal the divisions of the past and to establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights.( cited by JA Robinson: Children’s Rights In The South-African Constitution:(*http//sayas/org.za/per/article/view/(accessed 28/9/2020).
  27. CRA 2003 s 274.