Antecedent Instruments to the Rights of the Child:
• Geneva Declaration on the Rights of the Child, 1924.
• United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948.
• United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child, 1959.
• UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,1989
• African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child 1990 • Nigerian Child Rights Act 2003. The UN CRC was to be followed with the adoption in July 1990 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia by the General Assembly of Heads of States and Governments of the Organization of the African Unity Countries – OAU (now African Union – AU) of the Organization of African Unity Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. Nigeria signed the ACRWC on the 13th July 1999 and Ratified on the 23rd July 2001. “The uniqueness of the African Charter is that it enjoined all State Parties to embrace, not only the Rights of the Child, but also the responsibilities of the child” Nigeria enacted the principles in these international instruments into Law on 31st July 2003 in the Child’s Rights Act. The CRC, ACRWC, and the Nigerian Child’s Rights Act all recognize 37 specific Rights of the Child.
These 37 specific Rights are implementable nationally in various sector ministries, tiers of Government and levels of society, and, therefore, clustered into 4 core areas for facilitating the understanding of the implementation tasks and the implementation monitoring mechanisms and procedures. The 4 Clusters into which the 37 specific Rights of the Child fall are:
• Survival Rights.
• Development Rights.
• Protection Rights.
• Participation Rights.
RIGHTS:
• Right to life and livelihood nurturance;
• Right to identity, including a name and nationality;
• Right to good basic health and health care services;
• Right to age-appropriate nutrition;
• Right to social security; and
• Right to entitlement to ethnic, religious, linguistic identity and affinities
DEVELOPMENT RIGHTS:
• Right to psycho-social development ;
• Right to Education;
• Right to access to quality health and health services;
• Right to access to good quality nutrition;
• Right to access to leisure and recreation; and
• Right to parental care and entitlement to live with and be brought up by parents or guardians.
PROTECTION RIGHTS
: • Right to protection from all forms of physical and psychological violence;
• Right to protection from all forms of neglect and abuse;
• Right to protection from all manners of exploitation (economic, social, psychological, human, etc.);
• Right of protection from exposure to illicit use and illegal transactions (in drugs, human trafficking, sexual pervasion, etc.);
• Right to protection from discriminatory and harmful practices (social, cultural, gender, etc.); and
• Right to be provided with special protection measures under extra vulnerable, violent, and emergency situations
PARTICIPATION RIGHTS:
• Right to freedom of thought, speech and expression;
• Right to freedom of appropriately guided association;
• Right to be heard;
• Right of involvement in age-commensurate leisure, recreation and cultural activities;
• Right of access to age-appropriate, and educationally, socially, and culturally relevant information; and
• Right to assume social and cultural value responsibilities. •
