I recently read a story of a popular Nigerian actress who started acting from childhood and has featured in many nollywood movies. The story had it that after she lost her mother, who happened to be her only guardian, she was neglected, abused, impregnated, and now a mother at a very young age. Whilst I don’t trust the source or authenticity of the story, I am aware that such things happen and are very common in unhealthy societies where a lot of factors fuel vulnerability in children.
Undoubtedly, the future building blocks of any society are formed by children and youths of today. Yet, they are the ones whose basic rights are usually disregarded, frustrated, and left in deficit.
The dilemma of deficiency in adequate care towards children and the outcome that exposes them to the risks of vulnerability is not country or society specific. However, from my experience as a school administrator, I’m narrowing it down to vulnerable children in Africa, especially those in Nigeria, where I have facts with various episodes of neglect.
Vulnerable children are children whose circumstances expose them to potential for a risky, dangerous, or poor outcome. Naturally, children and adolescents are weak and dependent on adults for their basic needs, their care, guidance, and defence. When these are deprived, they become vulnerable to hazards and also constrained to conquer their future.
Children’s vulnerabilities are factored by different circumstances. It could be through the loss of parents/guardian, impairment/disability, poverty, hazardous environment, poor social/health care, dysfunctional family, and so on. These factors can cause material, emotional, or social vulnerability and are potential risks to a child’s future.
Apart from these structural factors, some children’s vulnerability stems from carelessness and negligence by their parents, carergivers, parents and other adults in the society and that is basically what this essay seeks to address. These minute acts of negligence could make a child deteriorate from resilience to total helplessness. It could be something as simple as ensuring their school lunch pack is neat and the meal healthy. It could be by teaching them hygiene, etiquette, respect, and other moral values.
Additionally, parents should promote positive communication, provide support and empowerment, supervise their children’s activities, know their friends, provide boundaries when and where necessary, and teach accountability and responsibility. It’s a call to absolute activeness and involvement in teaching and leading the children in their lives.
Society has a share of blame in promoting children vulnerability. Structural poverty, which induces harsh living conditions, has made it difficult for parents and caregivers to protect children from violence, substance abuse, insufficiency, and other ills that are prevalent in communities. Through deprivation of basic needs, children are often exploited, violated, abused, abandoned, and even infected by diseases.
Some children are exposed to child labour and hawking at a young age. Some live with old, frail, or ill parents who are overburdened to look after them. Some are affected by family/community conflict or rivalry. Some are influenced by a corrupt environment in schools and society. All these have negative outcomes on children and affect their safety at home, schools, community settings, and other external environment.
The constraints (immediate and remote) that these vulnerabilities cause can not be over emphasized. It affects children intellectual development, social skills, morals, and general disposition, thereby limiting their abilities and progress in life. Little wonder why we have many intelligent but ill bred children and young adults with impoverished mentality and twisted minds.
Therefore, it is a collective responsibility of every parent and adult to protect these children directly or indirectly. A cry for one is a cry for all, one corrupt child is a risk and danger to many other innocent children around because the transport connection between children and the influence they have on eachother is as wild as a pandemic.
Amara Ann Unachukwu.
