Child protection: Don’t rest on your oars, SCI urges journalists
Save the Children International (SCI), Nigeria has urged journalists from Katsina and Gombe states not to rest on their oars until the rights of every child in these states are better protected.
The Interim Manager of Towards Ending Child Marriage (TECM) project of SCI, Mr Akpan Effiong gave the urge while delivering his remarks at the opening ceremony of the training of the Media Working Group with participants drawn from different media from Gombe and Katsina states.
The five-day training which is being sponsored by Save the Children International is holding in Kaduna state.
Effiong stated that though lots of achievements had been recorded in both states as the child rights act had been domesticated in Katsina while efforts were also yielding positive results towards domestication of the act in Gombe state, it was not “time for journalists to relax on their efforts.
According to him, the battle for the protection of the rights of children in both states was still on, “ in the case of Katsina, yes it has been domesticated but more need to be done in the area of implementation while for journalists in Gombe we have to keep on pushing until we reach that stage of domestication.’’
The SCI official said the role of journalists were numerous with regard to ending violations against children, and “this is why we value our partnership with the media because our successes cannot be complete without the full participation of journalists.’’
According to Akpan, SCI places a lot of emphasis on the media because “they amplify our voices on issues of domestication of child rights act, girl-child education and abuses.’’
He stated that the need to build the capacity of journalists to better amplify SCI voices with regard to the above concerns necessitated the first training for journalists from Abuja, Katsina and Gombe states who were trained in Kano and “this is the second training holding in Kaduna for journalists from Gombe and Katsina states.’’
While commending journalists in both states for their efforts so far, Effiong charged them to actively participate in the training as well as raise the bars in their reportage to ensure implementation of the act in Katsina and domestication of the act in Gombe in efforts to better protect children from all forms of rights violations.
