Counsellors fill void for child abuse

It reported more than 70 cases of abuse and trafficking of children to law enforcement in the last one year, mostly children in transit within the country, and has now started targeting guidance counsellors in schools in Abuja.“We have been targeting families and communities, now we have also considered the importance of the school as […]

It reported more than 70 cases of abuse and trafficking of children to law enforcement in the last one year, mostly children in transit within the country, and has now started targeting guidance counsellors in schools in Abuja.
“We have been targeting families and communities, now we have also considered the importance of the school as another point where the child spends a lot of time,” said Abdulganiyu Abubakar, national coordinator of the group.
He said guidance counsellors needed exposure to skills, knowledge or strategies against forms of vulnerability and to help children protect themselves.
The National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and Other Related Matters (NAPTIP) has documented evidence of domestic servitude, sexual exploitation, ritual homicide, forced marriage, trafficking in organs or forced labour involving children.
Among what the agency calls “shocking realities” is the 2005 interception of a truck container carrying 67 children in Niger state, the 2007 rescue of seven children maimed for the purpose of begging by a woman in Enugu, and the 2008 abduction of 105 children aged between five and 13 on a bus as they rode from Kaduna to Niger.
Since 2009, it managed to convict 254 traffickers and rescued some 8,000 victims, according to Ogochukwu Adinde of NAPTIP.
STCI, which implements the West African Network for The Protection of Children, headed by International Social Service, is focusing on public schools in its two trainings for counsellors so far because its experience indicates children there are more vulnerable, according to its programme officer Agbaidu Napoleon.