Some stakeholders fighting for the protection of women and children’s rights in Enugu have decried the high rate of child abuse in various communities in Enugu.

They also decried the poor implementation of the Child Rights Law by the Enugu government during a stakeholders’ consultative forum to consider and adopt strategies for implementing Child Rights Laws on Wednesday.

The Women Aid Collective (WACOL) organised the event in partnership with The Agents for Citizens-driven Transformation (ACT) Programme, funded by the European Union and implemented by the British Council.

David Agu, the research coordinator of the Development Strategy Centre, Enugu, said the study on Gender-Based Violence in August showed increased child abuse in the state.

“Sometime this year, the EU ACT programme wanted us to create awareness on the level of child abuse in Enugu. So some NGOs agreed to work with them to increase the level of implementation of Child Rights Laws in Enugu, and as a centre, we saw the need to do a study on child abuse in the state,” Mr Agu explained. “In the four LGAs, four communities were selected in a way that it will represent the state and data were collected from students and households in those communities.”

According to him, findings revealed a high prevalence of child abuse, comprising child labour and physical, sexual and emotional abuse in Enugu, with 50 per cent males, especially in Enugu West LGA, followed by Awgu, Oji-River, Udi and Igboeze North LGAs, suffering child labour.

The coordinator added that a good number of children in Enugu missed school and classes, while others dropped out of school within the period of the study to engage in economic activities to help their parents.

He said the awareness of the Child Rights law in Enugu was less than 50 per cent in all the 17 LGAs, adding there was no database for child abuse.

(NAN)