Police warn against use of underage children as house helps

Musa Garba, the commissioner of police in Kaduna, says Nigerians should stop recruiting underage children as house helps.

Garba spoke on Friday at a two-day orientation workshop organised by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) in Kaduna.

The programme was organised for police officers and other stakeholders on the “Nigeria Police Force standard operating procedures (SOP) on handling cases involving children in conflict with the law”.

Garba said Nigerians and parents who push their underage children to work for influential individuals as domestic staff are disabling child protection rights.

“If we want to protect the rights of children, we should start from our homes,” he said.

“We cannot be here talking about protecting the rights of children and then in our homes, we have underage children working for us.

“It is wrong to give birth to many children and send them to the streets to fend for themselves.

“You will see some children below the age of puberty taken to well-to-do families to work for them.

“I am calling on everybody to stop recruiting underage children as house helps.”

He said the inspector-general police “feels that we should always sensitise our officers to not only know the rights of children but to learn how to protect them”.

The commissioner called for collaboration with stakeholders to address issues of child abuse in the state.