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Tag: UNICEF

  • I met only N1,500 in LG account, says Chairman

    I met only N1,500 in LG account, says Chairman

    The Chairman, Mubi North Local Government in Adamawa, Alhaji Musa Bello, said on Monday that he met only N1,500 in the account of the local council when he assumed office.

    Bello told newsmen in Mubi that he also inherited a liability of over N200 million.

    “I met only N1,500 in the council’s account and a liability of over N200 million, while the Internally Generated Revenue of the council, then, was N150,000 weekly,’’ the chairman said.

    According to him, he had to use his experience as a former councillor in the local government to mobilise the business community to pay appropriate taxes, to shore up the council’s internal revenue.

    Bello noted that at the time, the council had faced drastic revenue shortfall which made it difficult to even pay salaries.

    “We set up a committee and were able to boost the local revenue, which we use in executing a lot of projects within the short period we assumed office,” he said.

    According to him, the local council had drilled 13 boreholes and rehabilitated 104 others using internally generated revenue.

    He listed some of the projects executed by his administration to include evacuation of drainage to avert flooding and construction of six feeder roads.

    Bello said that activities were picking up after the insurgency which affected social and economic activities in the local government.

    He said that residents were waiting for government to carry out rehabilitation and reconstruction programmes, as pledged by the Presidential Committee on North East.

    Bello commended the state government for the construction and rehabilitation of 14 roads in Mubi town.

    “I also want to commend the contributions of Non-Governmental Organisations, National Emergency Management Agency, Victims Support Fund, North East Regional Initiative, UNICEF, Red Cross, Rescue, Oxfam and others.

    “I commend foreign countries that have been assisting our people in various areas including health, education, water supply and sanitation,’’ he said.

    The chairman also lauded the contributions of the military and other security agencies which facilitated the return of peace to the area.

    “The council is always in touch with the military and other security agencies to ensure the sustenance of peace, ’’ Bello said.

  • Tackling child pneumonia with technology

    Tackling child pneumonia with technology

    Six months of coughing and a debilitating fever was too much for Olivia Koburongo’s 86-year-old grandmother, whose body had been weakened by other age-related conditions. My grandmother, the 26-year old says, died of pneumonia that could not easily be diagnosed because of a lack of proper diagnostic equipment. “For six months she kept taking wrong medicine. Several health workers in different health facilities had diagnosed her with malaria. Pneumonia was discovered after a postmortem was conducted when she died,” Koburongo reveals.

    Killer ailment

    Children and the elderly are especially vulnerable to pneumonia. According to Unicef, pneumonia accounts for almost one million child deaths worldwide every year; 922,000 in 2015 which is 16% of total deaths among children under five years of age. In Uganda, Unicef estimates that the disease kills up to 24,000 children under-five every year, many of whom were misdiagnosed with malaria.

    Uganda, like its neighbouring countries, lacks proper diagnostic equipment for many diseases such as pneumonia, therefore health workers rely on basic clinical examinations. It is in this context that in 2014, Koburongo and four others invented “Mama-Ope” (Mother’s Hope): a biomedical smart jacket that detects and analyses pneumonia symptoms among children, with the aim of providing more accurate diagnosis. Koburongo, a graduate of Telecom Engineering from Makerere University, says the team has developed a prototype that is three times faster than the standard diagnostic process in Uganda.

    According to co-founder Brian Turyabagye, also a telecom engineer: “The jacket diagnoses, measures the extent to which the disease has affected the lungs and also tracks the progress of the disease since diagnostic information is sharable.”

    Milestone

    Mama-Ope won runner-up prize in the Big Ideas Innovation competition run by the University of California Berkeley in 2015. The $6,500 (about Shs 22.7m) prize provided seed money that the team used to develop a prototype.

    The team is currently in the process of getting certification from Uganda’s Ministry of Health.

    According to Dr Flavia Mpanga Kaggwa, a Health Specialist at Unicef Uganda: “The jacket needs to be approved by a regulatory authority to have the possibility of commercial viability. Otherwise I think it would be a great addition to the tools used in diagnosing pneumonia.”

    Once certification is secured, the team intends to do mass production and supply the jacket to countries in East Africa at a cost of about $80 (Shs280,000).

    In the meantime, Mama-Ope has been gaining supporters around the world – in March this year, Brian Turyabagye won the Pitch@Palace Africa event hosted by HRH The Duke of York in London, England.

    “We plan to have the jacket also operate on solar energy which is more reliable for most East African countries,” Turyabage says.

    How it works

    Traditionally, doctors use a stethoscope to check for abnormal crackling sounds in the lungs. However, if medics suspect malaria or tuberculosis which also cause respiratory distress, they may end up misdiagnosing the patient.

    Currently at prototype stage, the Mama-Ope kit is designed to work as follows: health workers slip the jacket onto the child, and its sensors pick up sound patterns from the lungs, temperature and breathing rate. Each sensor is aligned to a particular symptom and in four minutes, data is computed and sent to a mobile phone application which does the diagnosis.

    “The processed information is sent to a mobile phone app (via Bluetooth) which analyses the information in comparison to known data so as to get an estimate of the strength of the disease,” explains Turyabagye.

    According to studies carried out by its inventors, the jacket can diagnose pneumonia up to three times faster than a doctor, and reduces human error.  The Mama-Ope team has also hired private medical researchers from Makerere University’s Infectious Disease Institute to test their prototype, and sought guidance from Unicef. Dr Namwase, a paeditrician at Mulago National Referral Hospital, said the device is “easy to use because there are not so many processes involved but also does not require special training to the health workers.”

    After displaying the result on the app, the technology goes on to advise on the appropriate action, e.g. if the disease is severe, it advises the user to reach out to the nearest referral hospitals. The beauty of this is that the doctor can gauge the severity of the disease from the point it was first diagnosed by using the information stored on the cloud.

     Aim

    Mama-Ope’s founders hope the smart jacket will help in saving diagnosis time and reduce the number of deaths due to pneumonia, which would be a great contribution to the country’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and save the government on wastage of drugs.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • 5m children susceptible to water-borne diseases in Lake Chad – UNICEF

    5m children susceptible to water-borne diseases in Lake Chad – UNICEF

    The UN warned on Friday that no fewer than 5.6 million children across the Lake Chad basin are susceptible to deadly water-borne diseases such as cholera and hepatitis E as the rainy season hits a region already reeling from Boko Haram’s insurgency.

    UNICEF in a statement, said the 5.6 million children in Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria, many of whom have been uprooted by violence and live in host communities or refugee camps, are facing the disease threat as the rains arrive.

    The aid agency said flooding and muddy roads are expected to limit aid access to remote areas, where hunger is growing and the food is lacking, while the insecurity has made it hard to deliver supplies and ensure clean water is available ahead of the rains.

    “The rains will further complicate what is already a dire humanitarian situation, as millions of children made vulnerable by conflict are now facing the potential spread of opportunistic diseases,” Marie Poirier of UNICEF said in a statement.

    “Unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene conditions can lead to cholera and hepatitis E.

    “Staving off disease is our top priority.”

    Cholera, which spreads through contaminated food and water, causes diarrhoea and vomiting, leaving small children especially vulnerable to death from dehydration, whereas liver disease Hepatitis E is particularly deadly for pregnant women.

    Also, the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), said in Niger’s Diffa region, which has been hit by the conflict and hosts about 250,000 uprooted Nigeriens and Nigerian refugees, an outbreak of hepatitis E has killed at least 33 pregnant women so far this year.

    “To curb this type of outbreak, we know that our best asset at the moment is … water and sanitation activities ” said Víctor Illanes of the MSF.

    “When the deficiencies are so high and the space to be covered is as large as Diffa, it is difficult for these activities to have an impact in the short term,” he added.

    Boko Haram’s campaign to create an Islamic state is in its eighth year with little sign of ending.

    It has claimed more than 20,000 lives and uprooted 2.7 million people across Lake Chad.

    No fewer than five million people in northeast Nigeria need food aid, and about 1.5 million are believed to be on the brink of famine, yet the UN in this June, had to cut emergency food supplies for 400,000 people due to a lack of funding.

  • Hydro geologists to hold conference on water resources in Ilorin

    The 29th Annual Conference of the Nigerian Association of Hydro-geologists (NAH), is to hold in Ilorin from November 5 to November 10 to discuss water resources development.

    The State Chairman of the association, Mr Lateef Kolawole, made this disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Thursday in Ilorin.

    According to him, the theme of the conference is: “Strategies to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)” in water resources.

    The chairman said the theme was anchored on the 6th goal of the 17 goals of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); Clean Water and Sanitation.

    Kolawole added that since the objective of the conference was to discuss Clean Water and Sanitation, some international agencies such as WHO and UNICEF would send delegates to the conference.

    He said that accepted abstract reviewed would be published in the book of abstract for the conference while submitted presentation at the conference would also be reviewed for publication consideration in Water Resources Journal.

    According to Kolawole, the needed facilities will be made available at the conference venue for exhibition of water resources, environmental and other Geo Scientific products, services, books and journals.

    He urged government ministries, agencies, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and private organisations to use the opportunity to showcase their products and achievements in the water sector.

  • UNICEF makes case for girl education, empowerment

    UNICEF makes case for girl education, empowerment

    As Africa celebrated this year’s Day of the African Child, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has said girl education is key to empowerment and equal opportunity.

    To mark this year’s day, UNICEF has partnered with Federal Ministry of Education and State Universal Basic Education Boards in Bauchi, Niger, Katsina, Sokoto and Zamfara states, to launch the Girls for Girls (G4G) initiative.  The initiative seeks to empower girls with information and knowledge to help build their capacity to stand up for themselves. It aims at creating equal opportunities for girls to access education.

    With this year’s commemoration of the day focusing on empowerment and equal opportunity for the African child, the launch seeks improve the life of the girl child .

    The primary goal of G4G, according to UNICEF, is to empower girls with knowledge, skills and confidence needed to enroll and remain in school, completing the full course of education so they can be role model to other girls in their communities.  Working with members of the Mothers Association as mentors, girls are expected to initiate and lead a range of activities to identify barriers to the education of girls in their communities and work to remove such barriers so girls will enroll and remain in school.

    Mohammed Fall UNICEF Representative in Nigeria said: “The G4G initiative is a commitment to improve the quality of girls’ and ultimately women’s lives by empowering girls through education.  By educating girls, practices such as early marriage will be uprooted and girls will be empowered to contribute to the development of their communities, states and Nigeria.”

    The G4G initiative is a component of the Girls’ Education Project Phase 3 being implemented in northern Nigeria through collaboration between UNICEF Nigeria and the Federal Government of Nigeria with funding from the United Kingdom (UK) Department of International Development (DFID), UNICEF said.

    This phase of the Girls Education Project seeks to help put 1million girls in school, support them to remain in school and improve their learning achievement. The focus states have the highest number of girls who do not attend school in Nigeria.

    According to UNICEF, despite important education gains in recent decades, Nigeria still has the largest number of girls not in school, adding that when girls enter school, a vast majority of them do not complete primary school education. “The average girl stays in school only through age nine. Less than one-third of girls in Nigeria enrol in the lower secondary school, and, in northern Nigeria, less than one in 10 girls generally complete secondary education.”

    G4G groups will be established in more than 8,000 Primary and Qur’anic schools by 2019.

  • UNICEF urges fathers to play, engage children in learning

    UNICEF urges fathers to play, engage children in learning

    The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has advised fathers to play and engage their children to deepen early learning process.

    The body gave the advice in its new report which revealed that many fathers did not play or engaged in early learning activities with their children.

    The revelation by UNICEF Communications Specialist, Ms Georgina Thompson, is contained in a statement to commemorate Father’s Day celebration slated for June 18 in about 80 countries.

    Thompson said the report showed that 55 per cent, approximately 40 million children, aged between three and four years in 74 countries were affected.

    The statement, quoting UNICEF Director of Data, Research and Policy, Ms Laurence Chandy, said the numbers showed fathers were struggling to play an active role in their children’s early years.

    “We must break down the barriers that prevent fathers from providing their babies and young children a conducive environment for them to thrive, including love, play, protection and nutritious food.

    “We must ensure that all parents have the time, resources and knowledge they need to fully support their children’s early development,’’ Chandy stated.

    She said the report used Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) data on parenting behaviours.

    According to her, MICS is the largest collection of comparable data on parental behaviours in the world.

    NAN

     

  • UNICEF hails Aregbesola’s social protection policies

    UNICEF hails Aregbesola’s social protection policies

    The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) at the weekend said Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola is a symbol of service to human development.

    The international organisation hinged its commendation on the governor’s commitment to human and infrastructure development since he assumed office in 2010.

    The Chief of Field Services of UNICEF Nigeria, Dr. Annefrida Kisessa, spoke at a get-together organised by the state in honour of representatives from 15 states and leadership of UNICEF on a visit to Osun to learn more about the state’s social protection programmes and its successes.

    Dr. Kisessa expressed delight over what she called “good governance in action” in Osun State.

    The UNICEF chief said the state had revolutionalised governance in Nigeria.

    She hailed Aregbesola’s commitment and passion to humanity, saying the governor’s social protection programmes are among the best in the country.

    The UNICEF team leader said the social intervention initiatives under Aregbesola had been assessed to be impactful, beneficial and rewarding.

    She said: “I have visited between 15 and 20 states in Nigeria. Since I have been visiting, I have not seen a leader like Aregbesola with rare passion for people’s welfare.

    “I have seen your passion to banish poverty, banish hunger, restore healthy living, promote functional and quality education for your people, among others. I have seen your passion to develop your people and your state. I am really proud of your achievements because I have seen your indelible legacies in all sectors.

    “With what I have seen, it is clear that Osun has shown that education is the key to development. Your programmes are no doubt centred on the people as your social protection projects are designed to better the lives of your people, especially the less privileged, vulnerable and downtrodden.

  • UNICEF concludes study tour of Osun’s social protection policies

    UNICEF concludes study tour of Osun’s social protection policies

    • Says Aregbesola symbolises service to humanity 

    The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, (UNICEF), on Friday described the Governor of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, as a symbol of service to the course of human development.

    The international organisation hinged its commendation passed on the governor on his commitment to human and infrastructure development since he assumed office in 2010.

    The Chief of Field Services of UNICEF Nigeria, Dr. Annefrida Kisessa, made this observation at a get-together party organised by the state in honour of the representatives from 15 states and leadership of UNICEF on a visit to Osun to learn more about the state’s Social Protection Programmes and its successes.

    Dr. Kisessa expressed her delight over what she described as ‘good governance in action,’ saying Osun has revolutionalised governance in Nigeria.

    She applauded Aregbesola’s sense of commitment and passion to humanity, describing Osun social protection programmes as one of the best in the country.

    The UNICEF team head said the social intervention initiatives of Aregbesola have been assessed to be one of the most impactful, beneficial and rewarding.

    According to her: “I have visited about 15 to 20 states in Nigeria and since I have been visiting, I have not seen a leader like Aregbesola with rare passion for people’s welfare.

    “I have seen your passion to banish poverty, banish hunger, restore healthy living, promote functional and quality education for your people among others. I have seen your passion to develop your people and your state. I am really proud of your achievements because I have seen your indelible legacies in all sectors.

    “With what I have seen, it is clear that Osun has shown that education is the key to development. Your programmes are no doubt centred on the people as your social protection projects are designed to better the lives of your people, especially the less privileged, vulnerable and downtrodden.

    “All these have direct impact and reflection of your initiatives like O’MEAL, O’YES, O’HUB, O’REAP, O’AMBULANCE, among others as we all attested to during the course of this visit.

    “I am also happy because all the achievements of this state are properly and accurately documented. I have seen that Osun has genuine statistics and data base for all its programmes.

    “I have seen rare difference in governance in the case of Osun because, since I have been visiting states, Osun is the only state where sanitation takes precedence in the activities of the government as everywhere I have visited was clean and streets tidy even more than some of Abuja streets.

    “Osun is a place I will like to be. I am very impressed with the quality of Osun Social Protection Programme. This shows the quality of Aregbesola’s leadership. It shows that Aregbesola is a very good leader and a symbol of service to humanity. I have come, I have seen and I have many memories to talk about.”

    Director General, Office of Economic Development and Partnership, Dr. Charles Diji Akinola, said the social protection programmes of Osun has indeed helped to ameliorate poverty and improved the well-being of the citizenry since Aregbesola became governor.

    He said the state had been further encouraged by the supports from agencies locally and internationally, saying the contribution of UNICEF in consolidating and solidifying the initiatives of Osun government on its life-long human and capital development projects remains commendable.

    “About two years ago, Osun Government had collaboration with the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund on the need to strengthen the state’s social protection programme. Today, the visit of the leadership of the UNICEF to Osun is a demonstration of the robust relationship, between the organisation and the state.

    “The idea behind this partnership is to consolidate on the Osun’s social protection programmes, which has been the central concern of this administration.

    “13 of these projects would be discussed and shared with the visiting team. We have been encouraged with what UNICEF had done in ensuring a mutually-beneficial partnership,” he said.

    In their separate remarks, the Zamfara State Commissioner for Education, Alhaji Moukhtar Luga, said Aregbesola is one of the successful Nigerian politicians that have made the country proud.

    He noted that the governor has changed the face of governance in such a way that old believes and practices have been remodeled.

    He said: “I have seen so many projects. I have seen the quantum of infrastructure development put in place by Aregbesola-led administration. I have seen a revolution going on in all sectors.

    “I have seen how people are made to realise that change is about good governance and commitment to human and capital development. I have seen the passion and commitment to development as some of the Osun policies and programmes have been replicated locally and internationally.

    “Aregbesola had built institution with his unwavering commitment to development. You have chosen a very hard-stick to ensure success for your state.

    “I have gone round some of the schools built by your administration and I am impressed with what I have seen so far. I am going back to my state to ensure the replication of all these programmes.”

    Sokoto State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Sheu Balarabe, said he was elated to see the achievements of the state in all sectors. He described as heart-warming all he saw on his tour of some of the facilities, saying all the governor’s intervention programmes are highly conscious of the people.

    “We have learnt a lot most especially on how things are being done in the state to record these laudable feats. We have been exposed to programmes like Osun Rural Enterprise and Agricultural Programmes called (O’REAP); Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme (OYES). We have also be told of how model schools built across the state came to limelight as well as other social protection programmes.

    “I am proud of all these projects because I have been to schools. I have seen how children are being motivated with government programmes. I have seen the energy in the pupils as a result of support, which your government is making.

    “All you are doing is about building an assured future for your state and the country as your projects are designed to meet the present and future needs of the people of the state.

    “Osun has built a template and as well harnessed its potential in such a way that Nigerian government and by extension the whole world could learn and tap from. Osun has built a template for an education revolution. So, we have learnt a lot and we are ready to apply this in our states.”

    The Head of Service, Kebbi State, Alhaji Abubakar Idris, said the governor has in six years done what his peers would find difficult to do.

    “Aregbesola had achieved within six years of his administration what many of his peers could not achieve even if given third term to administer their states.

    “Aregbesola is one of the most successful politicians in Nigeria. You are one of the respected governors in Nigeria whose passion for development could not be tainted or distorted.

    On his own, the representative from Federal Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget, Dr. Samson Ebimaro, said what he saw in Osun are very amazing, emulating and commendable as they justify the honour given to the Governor in 2013 as one of the few working governors in Nigeria.

    “I know all these are achieved with the supports which Mr. Governor received from his cabinet. So, as donor to both local and international agencies, we shall continue to support and encourage Osun Government to enhance quick realisation of its objectives since the state has been taken first in all sectors,” Ebimaro said.

    The Lagos State Director of Economic Partnership, Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget, Mr. Adejola Bankole, noted that with what he has seen in Osun, it is clear that all negative reporting in the newspapers are being concocted by some people to discredit Aregbesola’s administration.

    He said that all he had seen contradicted adverse things that people have been reading on the pages of the newspapers.

    He continued; “I have gone round the state and I have seen real development and change and I encourage Mr. Governor not to be deterred but rather, double his efforts in taking the state to the Promised Land.”

    Earlier, Chief of Field Services, UNICEF, Akure, Nigeria, Dr. Tejinde-Singh Sandhu, asserted that in all practical sense of it what good governance is and how it could benefit the people.

    He said; “Osun government had demonstrated what government and good governance is all about as this was reflected in the passion of Governor Aregbesola to humanity, saying he has not seen “In any state in Nigeria where government caters for its citizens from cradle to grave as is being done by the Aregbesola-led administration in Osun.”

    In his response, Aregbesola expressed gratitude to all representatives of the 15 visiting states most especially the leadership of UNICEF in Nigeria.

    He said, “I thank you all for choosing Osun and for identifying with our successes in supporting our people. Our mission is to provide better quality of life and advance the general welfare of our people.

    “It is our belief that this partnership will be sustained in furtherance of our collective efforts to enhance the condition of living of our people.

    He therefore enjoined UNICEF’s leadership on the need to prioritise seminars and meetings, which according to him would help to further strengthen development among the state of the federation.

  • UNICEF, 16 Nigerian states in Osun to understudy welfare programmes

    The various social protection policies being implemented in Osun by the Rauf Aregbesola-led administration came up for a four-day study on Thursday as the United Nations International and Children Emergency Fund UNICEF brought sixteen other Nigerian states for a tour.

    This was even as the Chief of Field Officer and Coordination of the United Nation’s International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), Dr. Annefrida Kisesa, commended Governor Aregbesola for being committed to human and capital developments of his people in spite of economic challenges

    UNICEF and the sixteen other states have organised a social protection tour of Osun which will last for about four days to enable them understudy the social protection initiatives being implemented in Osun.

    Visiting officials were drawn from Abuja, Bayelsa, Bauchi, Enugu, Lagos, Katsina, Ondo, Sokoto, Rivers, Zamfara, Akwa Ibom, Kebbi, Anambra, Benue, Delta in addition to UNICEF staff from various field offices in Nigeria.

    Speaking at the programme organised to welcome the participants in Osogbo, Governor Aregbesola commended UNICEF for the great work it is doing in Nigeria, which informed the tour to Osun as a model to be studied and recommended for other states.

    He held that the tour of Osun is very humbling, stating that when the state sets out to implement social protection programmes, her primary consideration was to take care of  the people.

    The Governor added that his administration never thought that many of the state’s novel programmes would be considered models worthy of emulation.

    According to him, “When my administration was inaugurated, we said that the biggest challenge at the time was the army of unemployed and disoriented youth that constituted a menace to society and to themselves.

    “We then set up the Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme (OYES) in less than 100 days to engage 20,000 youths in public works.  The cadets were drawn from all the local governments in the state, without consideration for their political, ideological, ethnic and religious backgrounds.

  • Raising better future for Children

    Raising better future for Children

    As the world celebrated the International Day for innocent children recently, for Fakomi Olajumoke, takes a look at the plight of Nigerian children and outlining the need why these children deserve a better future.

    Seven years old Nancy, went to her uncle Daniel’s room to greet him’ when she came back from school bashing into an unholy sight as she sees uncle Daniel jerking uncontrollable on his bed.

    As she attempted to take to her heels, she was stopped by uncle Daniel who pulled her into the room and offered her a gorge that tasted so sweet that it burned her throat, but she didn’t care she finished it all at once because she was hungry as the cup slipped from her little hand, she silently slipped into oblivion much to the delight of her uncle.

    He had an eye for Nancy since he came to stay with them few months ago, she is a tempting little beauty he had always though, as he watched her slip into oblivion he was overjoyed to see her run into his room while he was masturbating, his sinister thoughts led him to pull her uniform and committed the abomination; After he was satisfied, he woke his victim up and warned her against telling anybody about the defilement he committed else he was going to kill her.

    A lot of innocent children are victims of different emotional and physical abuses like Nancy, in other to protect these children, this day was set aside to remind people, especially parents that children are meant to be loved not abused, hugged not slugged, educated not maltreated.

    However close to 21,000 children die every year due to war around the world, approximately 3,500 children are emotionally taunted daily due to child abuse and malnutrition, these infect other children right, abusers have successfully made this little treasures a broken clock in sorrow, at lase in beauty, a failure in a funeral pyre and in victory a parading to rich, they made them wear a crown of thorns emotionally and degrading them to desperation and disregard, clothing in them in tawdry rags after they made them quadriplegic.

    UNICEF dedicated June 4 of every year to celebrate these children.

    In Nigeria, this issue of child abuse is rampant especially the case of raping and these pedophiles are sentenced to life imprisonment. However agencies like UNICEF Nigeria works with the government of Nigeria to strengthen prevention and response to violence, abuse neglect and exploitation of children and ensure that the children rights acts is operationalised,

    This concept of child abuse is attained, headlines like: “mother kills child”, “pastor chains son over witchcraft allegation”, “woman kills maid” , “man stabs girl”, are stories that dominate the media on a daily basis. Mostly affected in this abuse or violence are children who seems to have become an endangered species. There is no doubt that the rate of domestic violence and child abuse in Nigeria today is very alarming and child abuse in Nigeria today is very alarming and under reported.

    Finally, the black and blues may fade away but the pain inflicted will stay, every child is innocent and therefore deserves to be happy and safe.

    As from today let us use the power we have to create a better future and treat children well.