UNICEF reintegrates 9, 000 children linked with armed groups in Nigeria
By Njadvara Musa, Maiduguri
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has supported the social and economic reintegration of over 9, 000 children associated with armed groups in the country.
since 2017 across the county.
The UNICEF Chief of Borno Field Office, Phuong Nguyen, disclosed this, over the on Friday to mark 2024 International day Against the Use of Child Soldiers (Red Hand Day) in Maiduguri, Borno state.
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According to her, the UN health agency support structures include family tracing, safe return to their communities, psychosocial support, vocational training and the informal apprenticeships to the affected children.
Nguyen, however, lamented that many more children are still trapped in armed groups as child soldiers.
“There are still other children continuously facing incessant discrimination after their disengagements from the armed fighters in Sambisa Forest and the Lake Chad region,” noted the UNICEF boss in the northeast.
On the rise in child soldiers, she disclosed that; “Our Country Task Force on Monitoring and Reporting (CTFMR) has verified the recruitment and use of 685 children in 2023.
“This is against the recruitment and use of 136 verified children in 2022,” stating that the situation in the Northeast region is worrisome.
Nguyen continued; “When recruited by non-state armed groups, children are mainly used for strategic and military purposes: planting bombs, digging trenches, pillaging villages, killing enemy forces, as wives to commanders, manning checkpoints and as porters” Nguyen said.
She noted that since the signing of the Hand over Protocol in 2022, 141 children have been released from administrative custody by Nigerian security agencies to the Borno State Ministry of Women Affairs Social Development.
The State Commissioner of Women Affairs and Social Development, Zuwaira Gambo, said the Red Hand Day observed every February 12 of every year, is a call to bring an end to child soldiers.
“The Red Hand Day symbolizes stakeholders’ unwavering commitment to sustain the ending of the recruitment and use of child soldiers,” she said.
She noted that the collaboration with UNICEF and other stakeholders, including the Ministry, have advocated for the release of children in administrative custody for their alleged association with the non- state armed groups.
The Women Affairs boss, added: “Between 2016 and 2023, over 2,528 children comprising 888 girls and 1,640 boys were released from administrative custody.
Besides the release, the children were provided with interim care services and community- based reintegration support.
Zuwaira, therefore, called on the United Nations and the international community to continue their political, technical, and financial support to the sustainable reintegration of all children released from non-state armed groups.
