Implement Child Right Act to curb malnutrition – CISLAC urges FG

Implement Child Right Act to curb malnutrition – CISLAC urges FG

The Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), an NGO, on Monday appealed to the Federal Government to ensure the full implementation of Child Rights Act to effect adequate nutrition status as a child right.
Mr Auwal Rafsanjani, the Executive Director of CISLAC, made the call while addressing newsmen on the Status of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) in Nigeria and the human rights of the Nigerian child in Abuja.
Rafsanjani said that the call became imperative because sustainable growth in Nigeria would not be achieved without prioritised attention to scale-up and sustain investment for nutrition.
“Adequate nutrition status constitutes component of the rights of a child enshrines under Section 13(1) of the Child Rights Act 2013, which provides for every child to enjoy the best attainable state of physical, mental and spiritual health.
“More importantly, Section 3 mandates the government to reduce infant and child mortality, ensure health service, and provide nutrition and most importantly provide affordable primary health care service,’’ he said.
He said that Nigeria was blessed with enough resources to curb the menace of malnutrition so that no child would have to die, but corruption was limiting the process.
He urged governments at all levels to be responsive and responsible to tackling malnutrition so as to save the future generation of the country.
Ms Lovelyn Gabriel, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, CISLAC, said that malnutrition by implication increased susceptibility to infection, slow recovery from illness, low quality breast milk and development.
Gabriel said that an estimated 2.5 million Nigerian children under-five suffer from severe acute malnutrition annually, exposing nearly 420,000 children under-five to early death from common childhood illnesses such as diarrhoea, pneumonia and malaria.
She said that apart from challenges associated with poor domestication of policy, other shortcomings like weak nutrition governance and non-implementation of strategic plan, among others, were prevalent across many states.
“The future of Nigeria seemed bleak with the huge number of children under age of five that were unlikely to see their fifth birthdays as shown by statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics.
“The highest prevalence of global acute malnutrition based on middle upper arm circumference was reported in Zamfara with 10.3 per cent, followed by Katsina with 8.5 per cent and Sokoto with 8.4 per cent.
“The lowest was recorded in Imo with 0.8 per cent, followed by Anambra with 1.3 per cent then Bayelsa has 1.9 per cent, Delta two per cent, Kaduna 2.4 per cent and Jigawa 2.1 per cent.’’
Gabriel said that lack of uniformity in data presentation across levels of government on nutrition budgetary allocation and utilisation, inadequate legislative oversight on nutrition budget and delay in budgetary release hampered funding for nutrition.
She said that Nasarawa State fell within the worst hit region on malnutrition prevalence with 37.2 per cent, yet it had the least released counterpart funding.
She said that Sokoto ranked among the 12 northern states with high malnutrition and also lagged in counterpart funding, thereby putting the state at risk of socio-economic setback.
She said that the statistics buttressed the fact that a high percentage of Nigerian children were denied their fundamental right to life through inadequate provisions and releases of funds for treatment of acute malnutrition.
She noted that only Kaduna State provided the full counterpart funding as promised, adding that most states failed in keeping to their promise.
Gabriel said that government at all levels needed to take opportunity of the available matching funds by development partners before the Dec. 31 deadline to address the nutrition scourge across the country.
She also called for the release of funds committed to treatment of acute malnutrition in the 2018 budget and includes the treatment in the 2019 budget.
She called for the prioritisation of the establishment of community management of acute malnutrition programmes in states and implementation of National Health Act 2014.
She also called for improved focus on prevention and support early child development centres across the country to sustain nutrition interventions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: NAN

Photo Credit: Google