Eyoanwan Otu, wife of Governor Bassey Otu of Cross River, has called for Nigerian societal restitution for the neglected and abandoned child-mothers.

Mrs Otu made the call at the South-South forum on “Building Regional Partnership and Learning to Combat the Neglect and Abandonment of Child Mothers through Alternative Care” on Friday in Calabar.

The forum, organised by Gender and Development Action (GADA) and supported by the Ford Foundation, was attended by representatives from the South-South states.

Represented by Comfort Oko, her special adviser on administration, Mrs Otu said that child rights were continually violated by structures meant to protect them.

She said that neglecting child mothers in their post-pregnancy, which was often seen culturally as punishment, was a serious form of gender-based violence (GBV).

According to her, alternative care guidelines ensure children without adequate parental care receive protection, development, and support through kinship, foster care or adoption.

“We need to be aware that the consequences of abandoning child mothers include depression, mental health issues and vulnerability to continuous abuse.

“Following the national guidelines to support child mothers, developed by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and SOS Children’s Villages, we need to provide a safe, supportive environment, healthcare and access to education for child mothers,” Mrs Otu said.

The governor’s wife said it was important to avoid false reunification with abusive families, saying abusers should be made to face legal consequences.

She stated that the rights of the girl-child should be upheld through state agencies while parents who abandoned their child mother should be penalised.

On her part, Nkoyo Toyo, the founder of GADA and former ambassador to Ethiopia, said the forum became necessary to find a sustainable solution to the challenge of neglected child mothers.

She said in the course of their work against GBV, they came across neglected child mothers, and after listening to their stories, they discovered that many of them were products of abuse because their mothers were abused.

“The idea of this workshop is to expose participants to many things they can do for these abandoned child mothers to help remove them from their misery and poverty.

“We thought of empowerment, but there is no sustainable system of empowerment in Nigeria, so we thought of introducing them to alternative care arrangements, which will make them products of the state,” Ms Toyo said.

Similarly, Binta Bello, director general of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), said that according to the 2018 National Demographic Health Survey, 29 per cent of women between 20 and 24 gave birth before the age of 18.

Ms Bello, represented by Tolu Odugbeson, director of the Violence Against Persons Unit of NAPTIP, expressed concern over the growing vulnerability of child mothers.

(NAN)