President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, according to Minister of Labor and Employment Chris Ngige, has spent at least $100 million feeding 10 million Nigerian students as part of the National School Feeding Program.
When the US ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Beth Leornard, and representatives from the Department of State paid him a courtesy call on Friday, Ngige made this statement in his office.
He stated that the school feeding program was implemented by the Nigerian government to “lure youngsters involved in child labor, back to school” as part of attempts to end the epidemic of child labor in the nation.
“To entice kids back to school, we’ve implemented the National School Feeding Program under our social security. We are currently feeding 10 million youngsters nationwide. Nearly $100 million has been spent on this.
With the help of the Child Rights Act and the Universal Basic Education Act, we have also expanded the number of schools in places where child labor is a problem and made education free nationwide.
“We established the Disability Peoples Commission to provide complete and all-encompassing assistance to people with disabilities so they won’t feel like they have a disability. It is pure poverty if you don’t help someone with a disability, he remarked.
According to him, when the family income is insufficient due to underemployment or unemployment, vulnerable families send their underage children to work in cocoa plantations, mines, or in street hawking and small-scale trading.
He said that campaigning alone cannot end the epidemic because it would be challenging to keep a hungry person’s attention.
The minister praised the US government for its recent technical assistance provided to West Africa by the US Department of Labor in the fight against workplace violence and harassment in accordance with International Labor Organization Convention No. 190.
“Nigeria and Liberia are mentioned there, and the estimated budget for the project is $5 million. It is a step in the right direction, in our opinion.
Leornard had earlier stated that the United States Government was concerned to learn that children in Nigeria were being forced to engage in the worst kind of child labor at quarries, granite quarries, and mining sites.
Leornard reaffirmed that her nation would continue to collaborate with the Nigerian government to combat the epidemic and urged the seven remaining states that have not yet domesticated the Child Rights Act to do so right away.
According to her, the US government was thrilled to learn about a new initiative in Nigeria that gives disadvantaged individuals start-up money to pursue initiatives in locales with a high prevalence of child labor.
You can read more of such stories at The Cheer News and Credible News