The inability to sign the Child Rights Act into Law in Enugu
State took a front row Thursday at the commencement of a two-day media dialogue
with stakeholders in the coal city capital, Enugu, ITRealms reports.
This revelation came on stream at the two-day media dialogue
organized by the Child Rights Information Bureau (CRIB) of the Federal Ministry
of Information in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund
(UNICEF) for online editors as part of efforts to mainstream child rights in
web-based news item at Tuscana Hotel, Independence Avenue, Enugu.
According to the UNICEF Communication Specialist for Media
and External Relations, Mr. Geoffrey Njoku, 23 out of the 36 States
respectively, while Enugu State remain the only proverbial black-leg in the
southern part of the country as its yet to endorse the Child Rights Act into
law in the state.
ITRealms notes
that the Child Rights Act was signed into existence by the President Olusegun
Obasanjo in 2003.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted and
opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution
44/25 of November 20, 1989, while it entered into force on September 2, 1990 in
accordance with Article 49, whereas it has been ratified by some 193 countries.
Mr. Njoku also said that the Child Rights Act has largely
not been endorsed by northern states with exception of Jigawa, which retracted
it after signing the CRA into law with the excuse for further fine-tuning.
He also called on Civil Society-based organisations to join
forces with the forth estate members like the Guild of Corporate Online
Publishers (GOCOP) to create relevant awareness to enable states to embrace the
CRA and sign same into laws.
Mr. Njoku explained that why UNICEF and CRIB decided to
bring media online stakeholders together includes sensitizing online
journalists and editors on the contents of the convention on the rights of the
child and the child's rights Act 2003.
In addition to establishing partnership with the online media practitioners on child rights media advocacy initiatives, Njoku the dialogue would throw-up some development story angles.
He expressed that expected outcome include that the partnership
established this crop of media practitioners would pave the way for them to
have knowledge on child rights, thus becoming advocates of child rights using
their platforms.
ITREALMS ... delivering news for development
No comments:
Post a Comment