Why the Child’s Rights Act still doesn’t apply throughout Nigeria
USANG MARIA ASSIM, Senior Researcher/Lecturer, Children's Rights and the Law, University of the Western Cape NIGERIA adopted the Child’s Rights Act in 2003, giving legal consent to both the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. The country’s constitution states that for an international law to take effect, Nigeria’s legislature must create a national version. But as Nigeria operates a federal system of government, the law does not automatically become applicable in all of its 36 states. In terms of the constitution, children’s issues are the…