Abuja Interfaith Youth Network and the Cardinal Onaiyekan Foundation have called on government and all stakeholders to rise to the challenge of child molestation in the country.
According to the groups there is need for concerted effort to put an end to child abuse and child violence. They made this know at the medical outreach organized for children of the Kuchingoro IDP camp in Abuja recently.
The Abuja Interfaith Youth Network is a network of Christians and Muslim youths working together to promote religious understanding and peace in Nigeria.
Speaking with our correspondence the Director of the Cardinal Onaiyekan Foundation (COF) Reverend Sister Agatha Chikelue said, “We have to find a way to end child violence and abuse on children we can do that by coming to see things for ourselves in these IDP amps and find out how we can help them.”
The group called on well meaning Nigerians to take the health and wellbeing of children in the Internally Displaced Persons Camp serious as they are in dare need of attention.
Co-chair of the Interfaith Network , Rev. Fr. John Okwonkwo said the group is on ground to provide medical treatment for the children and refer those necessary to the hospital for further treatment.
He observed that the children are faced with different challenges at the camp but more attention should be invested in the health and wellbeing of the children.
He said that the group intends to make the medical outreach for the IDP children a continuous exercise while calling on other groups and organizations to partner with the interfaith netweork in order to ensure the children are healthy.
“We have been doing this since the middle of this year and we intend to continue as long as our resources can take us. We are looking out for thoes who will be interested so that we partner together in order to continue. We intend to have a clinic here that would after for the Children and other IDPs 24hours’.
The government is not doing enough. They need to constantly come to the camp to see things for themselves. It is a true picture of many Nigerians. Many people are languishing in poverty”.
The COD Director advised the NGOs and private individuals to come to the aid of the IDPs. “They left their businesses and farmlands in their states just to save their lives; if communities and private individuals come here to help them it will make a difference.” She said.
She noted that her organization have been in the forefront of empowerment for women in the IDP camps, she called on other organizations to also create avenue of empowerment for the IDPs. “it might not really be enough to just come here and drop cloths, food and others but if we can help them with skills that would help them to fend for themselves it would be of really help to them.”