Playback Nigeria, with the support of UNICEF, is partnering with
Civil Society Organizations (CSO) across 12 Nigeria states and the FCT to march
for children with hashtag #March4Children, reports ITRealms.
Convener of the iMarch4Children and Executive Director of
Playback Nigeria, Oluwadamilola Apotieri-Abdulai, said this culture of silence
must be broken.
“At the launch of the Presidential Year of Action to End
Violence Against Children on 15thSeptember 2015, His Excellency
President Muhammadu Buhari called upon every Nigerian to play their part to End
Violence Against Children in Nigeria.
The #iMarch4Children, Abdulai said, is a response to raise
social awareness of this acute problem facing millions of children and to
mobilize communities to take action.”
“The #iMarch4Children art-based project will take place in
Lagos, Kaduna, Gombe, Cross River, Plateau, Ebonyi, Abia, Akwa Ibom, Enugu,
Delta, Rivers State, Kebbi State and Abuja on the 27th of May 2016 by 8am,
bringing together children and young people of different age groups and
backgrounds, religious and cultural leaders, the general public, celebrities
and public figures who have been identified as #iMarch4Children Ambassadors,”
Abdulai said.
As said
by the convener, the Nigeria Violence Against Children Survey carried
out by the National Population Commission, with the support of UNICEF and US
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, launched by Government of Nigeria
in September 2015, highlighted the prevalence of sexual, physical, and
emotional violence suffered by children in the country.
The
survey, ITRealms gathered, estimates that half of all children in Nigeria
experience physical violence, one in four girls and one in ten boys experience
sexual violence and one in six girls and one in five boys experience emotional
violence before they reach the age of 18 years.
Abdulai
further said, the majority of children never tell anyone what has happened to
them. Less than 4% get the help they need to recover.
All
participants, the convener said, will dress in a way that depicts the impact of
violence against children, in order to shed a light on the silent suffering of
millions of Nigerian children.
“A
communique would be delivered to the Government in each state and at the
Federal level on behalf of the CSOs after which a Die-In activity would be
conducted, a process which will involve participants lay on their back to
reflect on millions of children that have died as a result of violence against
children. A daily tweet-meet has been launched on social media with different
stakeholders tweeting on issues related to VAC on the official social media
platform for the march and campaign @iMarch4Children and @end_vac,” Abdulai
explained.
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