Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and the United Nations Children Fund, (UNICEF), have inaugurated a Child Protection and Research Center for the collation of information on child welfare in Nigeria.
Barrister Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, Minister of Women Affairs, at an official unveiling of the Center by UNICEF on Monday in Abuja, said the center is a repository for information on all cases pertaining to children in the country.
“The Center is a very laudable project which UNICEF has done to support Nigeria’s effort at protecting children,” she said.
The minister explained that cases of abuse, Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) and other violations against the child will be recorded in the center to assist in research that can lead to durable solution finding.
“This is a major boost and support in our effort to protect children. So many things that should not be happening to the children, they cannot talk for themselves. Even some of the cultural norms like Female Genital Mutilation, (FGM), against babies that can’t speak for themselves.
“Now whistle blowers can reach us and we put up this information to help with intervention and that is why I said that this data is the major step towards achieving the renewed hope agenda,” she adds.
UNICEF Deputy Country Representative, Rownak Khan, said the research center is a timely intervention to understand points of entry in terms of support for children.
She said, this center will actually be the bedrock to give us all evidence to allow us to design programmes for children all over Nigeria mainly focusing on the most excluded children, the vulnerable.
“In UN, we talk about sustainable development and sometimes we provide support which are not very sustained and it does not leave any legacy but this is one true example where we will be leaving a lot of legacy as the research will be the background for all the work that will be done and it will stay with the government.”
Ibrahim Sesay, Chief Child Protection Officer at UNICEF, mentioned the research center’s anticipated work while pointing out that it will gather and annex reports showing areas and locations with high incidence of child violations and areas with data on better treatment of children.
