" ITREALMS: Non-endorsement of Child Rights Act by Enugu State worries online publishers

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Non-endorsement of Child Rights Act by Enugu State worries online publishers



The inability to sign the Child Rights Act into Law in Enugu State took a front row Thursday at the commencement of a two-day media dialogue with stakeholders in the coal city capital, Enugu, ITRealms reports.

This revelation came on stream at the two-day media dialogue organized by the Child Rights Information Bureau (CRIB) of the Federal Ministry of Information in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for online editors as part of efforts to mainstream child rights in web-based news item at Tuscana Hotel, Independence Avenue, Enugu.

According to the UNICEF Communication Specialist for Media and External Relations, Mr. Geoffrey Njoku, 23 out of the 36 States respectively, while Enugu State remain the only proverbial black-leg in the southern part of the country as its yet to endorse the Child Rights Act into law in the state.

ITRealms notes that the Child Rights Act was signed into existence by the President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2003.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 44/25 of November 20, 1989, while it entered into force on September 2, 1990 in accordance with Article 49, whereas it has been ratified by some 193 countries.

Mr. Njoku also said that the Child Rights Act has largely not been endorsed by northern states with exception of Jigawa, which retracted it after signing the CRA into law with the excuse for further fine-tuning.

He also called on Civil Society-based organisations to join forces with the forth estate members like the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP) to create relevant awareness to enable states to embrace the CRA and sign same into laws.

Mr. Njoku explained that why UNICEF and CRIB decided to bring media online stakeholders together includes sensitizing online journalists and editors on the contents of the convention on the rights of the child and the child's rights Act 2003.

In addition to establishing partnership with the online media practitioners on child rights media advocacy initiatives, Njoku the dialogue would throw-up some development story angles.

He expressed that expected outcome include that the partnership established this crop of media practitioners would pave the way for them to have knowledge on child rights, thus becoming advocates of child rights using their platforms.


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