Nigeria’s children are not tomorrow’s problem; they are today’s responsibility. When a society fails to protect its children, it mortgages its future. A survey by National Bureau of Statistics show the scale of the crisis: The 2022 survey report titled, “Child Labour in Nigeria at a glance”, released in 2024 also showed that 24.67 million or 39.6 per cent of children were in child labour during the review period. The NBS further noted that out of the 39.6 per cent, 22.9 per cent or over 14 million children are in hazardous work. Millions of Nigerian children are engaged in work that steals their childhood, endangers their health and denies them education. These are not distant numbers; they are neighbourhood children, market hawkers, children in quarries and mines, and students who never make it to the school gate. Understanding what the law requires and how it protects these young lives is not an academic exercise — it is a civic duty. The Child Rights Act gives the legal scaffolding for protection, but law without awareness is like a locked gate with no key.
The Child Rights Act, 2003 (CRA) is Nigeria’s solemn promise to every boy and girl: you are entitled to protection, you are owed dignity, you deserve opportunity. The CRA does not treat children as potential – as future citizens – but as rights-bearing persons today. Under its provisions every child under eighteen has the right to education, to health, to personal safety, to be free from exploitative labour or harmful work, and to be shielded from abuse — whether physical, sexual, emotional or economic. Where the federal instrument does not apply directly, the Act invites each State to domesticate it, so that its protections reach the farthest hamlet, the smallest village, the quietest suburb.
Yet laws do not act alone. They must be awakened by people, enforced by institutions, and guarded by communities. Across Nigeria we see the consequences when we neglect them. From the crowded quarries in Nasarawa State, where children work long hours in dusty darkness instead of classrooms, to the street corners of major cities where young boys hawk wares under sweltering noons, childhoods are being sold in fragments. Investigations reveal children as young as six, deprived of school, denied rest, forced to labour — some in hazardous jobs, others in domestic servitude or dangerous trades. Each statistic is a stolen laughter, a disrupted dream, a forfeited tomorrow.
Children’s rights are not charity. They are rights. They are laws. They are responsibilities that belong to all of us — the rich and the poor, urban and rural, old and young.
The CRA offers more than words of comfort; it offers enforceable remedies. When a child is endangered — trafficked, abused, coerced, neglected — the law empowers concerned citizens, social workers, community leaders, even strangers with courage, to act. A parent, neighbour or any witness may petition the court for an emergency protection order. The court may direct that child’s immediate removal from danger; order medical examination; place the child under protective custody or in a care centre; demand investigation. These are not optional privileges. They are binding obligations on the State and its citizens. When courts exercise these powers, lives are saved. When they remain silent, innocence is lost.
We have seen, on some occasions, judges respond — real lives rescued from abusive households, children returned to school from exploitative labour, families held to account under criminal sanctions. But these successes remain too few compared to the scale of violation. In many states, enforcement remains weak, child-rights agencies underfunded, society indifferent. In remote communities, cultural practices — child marriage, apprenticeship under exploitative masters, early labour — continue under the guise of tradition or economic necessity. Poverty, ignorance, and fear conspire to silence the child’s cry.
For every Nigerian who reads this: know this — if you see a child hawking by the roadside at night, a baby abandoned at a mining site, a teenager withdrawn from school to labour at a risky job, you are mandated by law and conscience to act. Gather proof if you safely can — names, dates, location, photos. Report to social welfare, child-protection bodies, or the police. Demand that the court exercise its power under the CRA. Do not assume that “nothing will come of it.” Change rarely begins with the powerful; it begins with the vigilant, the brave, the outraged.
For parents and guardians: know that sending children to school is not optional — it is a right, a duty, a moral covenant. Do not barter their future for quick gains. Do not consent to child labour, child marriage, or exploitative apprenticeships. For state governments yet to domesticate the CRA — you owe it to your children to ratify and enforce it without delay. For community and religious leaders: let your pulpits, market squares, community halls become centres of awareness. Speak truth to poverty, tradition, ignorance and neglect.
Children’s rights are not charity. They are rights. They are laws. They are responsibilities that belong to all of us — the rich and the poor, urban and rural, old and young. When we enforce them, we build a nation that honours humanity at its roots. When we ignore them, we betray our own future.
Because every child deserves a childhood. Every childhood deserves dignity. And every Nigerian — today, tomorrow, and for generations — deserves a nation that protects its smallest and most vulnerable, not for what they might become, but for who they already are.
Knowing the law doesn’t make you rebellious — it makes you responsible. Spread the word.
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