Bauchi Replicates Community Protection Structures For Children’s Safety

The Bauchi State government is to replicate school-based community child protection structures across the state to guarantee the safety of children from all forms of abuse and exploitation.

To this end, the State Universal Basic Education Board, (SUBEB) and the State Ministry of Women Affairs and Child Development are to synergise to achieve this objective in furtherance of government’s desire to end all forms of child molestation.

The decision was one of the key resolutions reached in Misau during the celebration of the 2024 child safeguarding week, which was organised by the Women Development Association for Self-Sustenance (WODASS) in partnership with the Misau local government.

Participants drawn from various line MDAs in the state, top Misau local council officials, women groups and students from 6-post primary schools in Misau Emirate also called on Bauchi State government to prioritize recruitment of guidance and counseling specialists to educate students on safeguarding principles.

Hajiya Talatu Yakubu from SUBEB promised her board’s readiness to extend school based community child protection structures in schools across the state in order to enlighten students on various forms of abuses they could be subjected to within the school and their respective communities and the reporting mechanisms to seek redress.

The representative of the Ministry of Women Affairs and Child Development, Mrs Habiba Adamu, said that already, Ganjuwa, Darazo, Dass, and Bauchi local governments are benefiting from the school-based community child protection structures comprising faith-based groups, women development officers, traditional leaders, and magistrates whose grassroots orientation would help to fight the menace of child abuse.

Earlier, WODASS programme manager, Magaji Barde while commending WaterAid Nigeria for funding the programme, appealed to Misau local government to step-down the training on child safeguarding principles through the already existing WASH clubs in schools in Misau Emirate to enable more students and teachers to benefit.