On Thursday, September 1, 2011, same day we metamorphosed from Gilgal Partners to Taiwo Akinlami INSPIRES, I was at Ibadan, Oyo State to inaugurate the Child Protection Network, Oyo State on behalf of Roseline Akinroye, Child Protection Specialist, UNICEF. We were hosted by the state ministry of women affairs.

The issues of Child Protection have become major in every part of our country, and Oyo State is not different. Cases of abandoned children, child sexual molestation and the rest, top the list of cases in the state. I am however positive that with the inauguration of the Child Protection Network, the state is about to witness a new order of child protection.

For everyone who is interested in Child Protection, I invite you to join the discussion in progress as I kick of today with the eighth human hindrances to the protection of the rights of the child in Nigeria.

8. The undisciplined/visionless: These are people without regulated standard of behaviour. Their lives are not lived on principles and universal laws of human conducts. They are like a city without walls, providing easy entrance to all trespassers. Since they cannot give what they do not have, they are not able to stuff their children with discipline, values and virtues.

In fact, they spoil the child and make him a victim of the challenges of adulthood. These ones raise children by impulse not by laid down rules and regulations well explained to the child as the acceptable standard of behaviour for his own good.  These ones also do not teach children under their care responsibility. They encourage them knowingly or unknowingly to be liabilities.

9. The timid: These are people, who to a very large extent are aware of the rights of the child but they are not bold enough to speak for the child. They see people trampling on the rights of their wards, they are not bold enough to confront the situation and rescue the children from the hands of oppressors. Often, these are parents, teachers, heads of schools, etc.

10. The careless: These are people who leave the destiny of their wards in the hands of people they cannot vouch for. They leave their children with nannies, whose character they cannot vouch for, whose health history they do not know and will not care to find out. They register their children in crèches, which hygiene and that of its operators they do not verify.

They enroll their children in schools without asking for a checklist of behaviour. They employ teachers, who they cannot vouch for, leaving the collective destiny of the children under their care to chances. They just believe all things on the face of it and put their treasure, their children through same.

11. The selfish: These are small men and women, who think only of today and not of the future. They think about their personal interest first before they think about the child and his best interest. Naturally they don’t see any reason why the boat should be rocked because of the child. It can be rocked about business deals and struggle for political power but not because of the child. There is no war in the world today being fought because of the child but there is no war today that the child is not a victim.

12. The impatient: These ones are in the habit of been shocked with what is normal in the cause of human development and life in general. They are shocked and angry that the child is being a child. They expect the child to assume maturity not because their desire is investigated and found to be supported by nature, but because their patience cannot accommodate nature taking its normal course. They simply frustrate the child. They confuse him and make him a jelly of himself.

Thank you for joining us today. Remember, awareness is superior to enforcement. Therefore if I have you as a believer in this message, win your areas of influence.