Economists Digest

VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN IN NIGERIA – ECONOMIC, PSYCHOLOGICAL, CULTURAL AND SOCIO-RELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVES.

“Tell me who’s responsible for what we teach our children?
Is it the internet or stars on television? Why O! Why?
So little Lucy turns sixteen,
And like the movie she's been seeing,
She has a lover in her daddy,
She can't tell nobody
'Till she makes the evening news”
(Curled from the lyrics of singer and songwriter Asa, in “fire on the mountain” …)

One very trendy subject matter heating up the internet space, fora, and the likes, is the increasing campaign/sensitization about “violence against children (VAC). Various bodies across the globe including Governments, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Religious groups inter alios, have raised various concerns about the spate of this atrocious act, which poses a great threat to the future of generations even of those unborn, with the view of bringing a halt to this spiteful practice.

In simple terms, violence against children includes all forms of violence against people under the age of 18. For infants and younger children, violence mainly involves child maltreatment (i.e. physical, sexual and emotional abuse and neglect) at the hands of parents, caregivers, and other authority figures.

As earlier hinted, violence against children has many faces and forms: physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, emotional abuse, and more. However, these are mutually inclusive – this, to mean that victims could suffer more than one form of violence concurrently.

This act of violence happens to be one of the biggest problems affecting families and societies today. It happens all around the world, in all countries and societies, with a greater percentage in developing nations; all too often it happens in the family, which makes the proximity of occurrence a major challenge to contend.

Violence can affect a child for the rest of their life, with severe consequences for a child’s physical, psychological and mental health. Without adequate support and care, violence, like trauma can have long-term effects on a child’s development and future life.

Study reveals that children who have experienced violence are more likely to perpetuate the circle of violence, passing on patterns of violence to their peers or to future generations – and the thread continues.

Therefore, ending violence against children is not only imperative for each child’s rights, but also for sane and healthy communities and societies.

Against this backdrop, what factors could be responsible for the perpetuation of violence against children? This article therefore, inter alia, fundamentally queries the psychological, economic, cultural, and socio-religious perspectives as to the likely reasons why children could be violated. Firstly, let’s quickly consider the economic perspective of the possible causes of violence against children in our contemporary society;