The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has called for an end to the recruitment and use of children by armed groups in Nigeria – and the release of those in the custody of such groups. They also urged support for former child soldiers in northeast Nigeria.

The agency made the call on “Red Hands Day”, on Monday, February 14, the International Day Against the Use of Child Soldiers.

For 13 years, armed conflict in northeast Nigeria has claimed thousands of lives and disrupted livelihoods and access to essential services for children and their families.

Nearly one million homes and 5,000 classrooms had been razed in the protracted armed conflict.

Since 2009, more than 8,000 girls and boys had been recruited and used as child soldiers in different roles by armed groups, said UNICEF.

Bashehu Abdul Ghaniyyu, the chairman of Borno State’s Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), told RNI reporter Aisha Jamal that since 2016 the United Nations (UN) had declared CJTFs among the armed groups using children in conflict activities.

“In 2016 we were blacklisted because children helped us with activities, such as searching vehicles at checkpoints, paper work, chores like sweeping, and other activities, until 2017 when we reached an agreement with the UN and signed an Action Plan to stop the activities of children in conflict.”

He said that by abiding by the rules, the UN had taken the CJTF off the blacklist and 2,203 children were stopped from such activities.

“We mark ‘Red Hands Day’ to show the world that we no longer involve or employ anybody under the age of 18.”

He said the UN and others partners, such as the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), UNICEF and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), had enrolled some of the children in schools and had empowered others by teaching them skills and training them to become tailors, mechanics and shop owners.

“The CJTF now has a standing order to punish whoever violates the rule by engaging children in our work.”

Ghaniyyu said no one should use children in any activities pertaining arms.

Instead, he said, children should be enrolled into educational institutions to gain knowledge so that they would have a fruitful future.

Phuong T Nguyen, UNICEF’s chief of the Maiduguri Field Office, said: “We call for an immediate end to the recruitment and use of innocent children as soldiers or for any other conflict-related role. It is unacceptable and unconscionable that girls and boys continue to serve on the frontlines of a conflict they did not start.”

In a report published on February 14, UNICEF called on the authorities to sign the Handover Protocol for children encountered in the course of armed conflict in Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin region, saying it would end the detention of children formerly associated with armed groups.

The Handover Protocol would ensure children encountered during military and security operations were transferred from military custody to civilian child protection actors to support their reintegration into society through the provision of family tracing and reunification services and medical, educational and psychosocial-recovery services. They would also receive life-skills support, skills training and given links to decent work.

The agency said the Borno State Child Protection Act, recently signed into law by governor Babagana Umara Zulum, prohibited and prescribed stiff penalties for the violation of children’s rights.

The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict also prohibited the forced recruitment or conscription of children under 18 by government forces, and the participation of children under 18 in active hostilities by any party.

The Optional Protocol, ratified by the Nigerian government in 2012, placed obligations on non-state armed groups, not to, under any circumstances, recruit or use in hostilities people under the age of 18.

“We must do more to ensure that Nigeria’s children do not suffer the worst impacts of conflict,” said Nguyen.

“We owe girls and boys a chance to leave the horrors of conflict behind. Every day of delay in the custody of armed groups is a tragedy with grave implications for the children, families and Nigerian society as a whole.”

AISHA JAMAL