On her part, the Executive Director, Women and Girls with Albinism Network, Constance Onyemeachi said that children with albinism are first targets for rape and child trafficking. “There is child with albinism I met in an orphanage in Kuje Area Council whose parents are still alive but the community wanted to kill the child and the parents had to send her to the orphanage. She cannot go home, not because are parents are dead, she is seen as a taboo and cannot grow up in her community like any other child just because she was born with albinism,” she sad.
Itodo Yusuf, a PWD said that law and its implementation is the fulcrum for rights protection. Yusuf who is a legal practitioner said that he had observed that in all the laws in the country, the right of children with disabilities is not well spelt out. He said that the African Union Charter on Persons With Disabilities come with elaborate provisions but the Nigerian Child Right Act, which is a product came with limitations.
“In section 16 of the Child’s Right Act, it talks about special measures for special children or children with special needs. But it comes down to say, whatever provision that will be made for them would be subject to availability of funds.
“That limitations is a big problem for us, we need to visit that provision particularly the sub-section 2, we need to remove that limitation on funding. This is Nigeria, there are resources to go round, if other children can be catered for, child with disabilities or special needs should also be catered for,” he said.
