Parents’ duty in protecting their children against abuse

The sights show how upbringing of child has degenerated: underage girls coming into the city from local government areas of Kano State, each with her hawking container; kids that play outside their homes with dress barely enough to cover their bodies. In the midst of the many social vices that have engulfed the society, children […]

The sights show how upbringing of child has degenerated: underage girls coming into the city from local government areas of Kano State, each with her hawking container; kids that play outside their homes with dress barely enough to cover their bodies.

In the midst of the many social vices that have engulfed the society, children are not getting the attention of what children of past generation which was more peaceful got. 

In the past, children were not exposed to abuse in a way that children are now exposed.

The irony is that daily, rapes of underage children are being reported, yet, parents continue to push their underage female children out of the home mostly to get money for them. 

They are unmindful of the kind of people their children relate with and they hardly care to know what these children are in. 

Some are sending the children out so that they could have a sound sleep or would have time to do their businesses.

Lamenting over this scenario, a staff of NAPTIP, Hajiya Aisha Muhammad berates parents, saying they failed to shoulder the responsibility put on them by God. 

Speaking at the international Human Rights Day organized by the Human Rights Network, Aisha said the level of child abuse going on in the society is alarming and she attributed that to the parents’ negligence.

“I’m sorry to say that fathers are not shouldering their responsibility as heads of the family. It could baffle you to hear that sometimes if we called the father of a rescued girl, he would tell us that he was not aware when his daughter was sent for house help in the city,” she said.

She cited the case of a young girl brought to their office and her parents called over. Her parents were so shocked with what they heard from the mouth of their daughter, the father fainted.

“She was living her life in the father’s home independent of the parents. As at that point she was telling them that for the past five years she has been diagnosed with HIV and that she was on drugs but neither her mother nor the father were aware of this. Imagine this, who is to blame for the condition this girl found herself in?,” she said.

Aisha said it was unfortunate that fathers now care more for the means of livelihood than the training of their God gifted children. 

“You now find fathers giving more concern to earning means of livelihood than their families. They will not care about how their families are running their lives. Some would leave home very early and come late when some of the children have already slept,” she lamented.

She added that it was wrong for fathers to send their young children to go and seek for money for them, saying the children would not get what has not been destined for the parents; instead it would only lead them to shameful and pitiful condition.

According to her sending underage children to the city for house help was just exposing the young children to abuse from either the husband or the children of her mistress or even the security men living in the house. She noted that another negative effect was that when these girls go back to the village, they would not be able to adjust to the village life again and from that another window for waywardness could be opened.

She said allowing women to shoulder the responsibility of training the chld alone is wrong because, “God has created women weak, they are in need of support to succeed. So men should bear this in mind and reposition themselves to bring up upright children that will pray for them after death.”

She also blamed women for loving their children too much that they hardly frown at their children’s bad manners.

 “This is bad because when the children become spoilt , it is the mothers that will cry more,”she said.

Commenting on how parents’ negligence has led to the high cases of child rape, a legal practitioner who also spoke at the event, barrister Huwaila Muhammad Ibrahim said the way mothers allow their young children to be on their own was contributing to the rampant cases of rape.

“If you see how toddlers with only pants on playing outside with other children while mothers are inside engaged in some other pursuits, you will understand why rape is rampant,”she said.

She said parents should stop thinking that government could do something to reverse the trend; rather they should wake up from their slumber and face their responsibility squarely.

Adding to this, a mother of two, Hajiya Fatima Garba advised parents to reflect back and see how they were trained by their parents and compare it to the way they were training their own children.

“I could remember when we were small, if we stay longer than necessary on an errand, we would be interrogated to find out the reason for that stay. And very young ones among us were not sent alone, they go out with a more elderly one,” she said.

She lamented how parents nowadays would not question their children; even if they should see their children with a gift, they would not care to find out how it came about. If parents continue to be like that, children upbringing would continue to degenerate, she added.

While delivering his speech at the event, the national president of the Human Rights Network Haruna Ayagi said there was need for parents and the society at large to join hand to stop child abuse in whatever ramification. 

He said the network was formed to be a voice for the rights of the vulnerable members of the society.

On his part the hisbah commander, Sheikh Ibrahim Aminu Daurawa urged parents to support government in the prosecution of rapist, saying the culture of silence or pardoning would only aggravate the menace of child abuse.