Jaiyeola Andrews in Abuja
The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) on Saturday expressed its solidarity with victims of global child labour .
In a solidarity message to commemorate the 2016 World Day against Child Labour, the Acting Director-General of the NAPTIP, Alhaji Abdulrazak Dangiri, reiterated the commitment of the agency in joining hands with other stakeholders around the world to end child labour.
Describing child labour as a sad development, Dangiri stated that Nigeria had a fair share of the several millions of victims of child labour, who are living in slave-like conditions across the globe, having been deceived and lured out of their homes by criminal gangs and greedy parents.
He explained that victims of child labour suffer varying degrees of misfortune, inhumane treatments, psychological and emotional harm, physical torture, socio-economic violence, sexual abuse and harmful traditional practices that undermine their natural development as human beings.
’Their worth and dignity are destroyed, their lives are made worthless and with no hope on sight,” he stated.
On the focus of this year’s activities which is ‘Child Labour and Supply Chain’, the NAPTIP Boss stressed the need for labour inspectors to be more diligent in their activities and to ensure that no child is found working in plantations, quarries, manufacturing firms and other places where children are placed under harmful situations.
He said: ‘’The negligence by parents of their children and their greed which makes them to push the children out should no longer be tolerated in Nigeria. Children are gifts from God and parents are under obligation to take care of these children until they come of age.
” Unfortunately, many of our people now delight in making their children bread winners at very tender age while they feed fat on the sweat of those children. That is evil and must be stopped.’”
Further details later
