The Executive Chairman, UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking, Mrs Julie Okah-Donli, has called for a secured learning environment for all children living in the country.
Okah-Donli made this call in a statement by Miss Martha Adegbe, the Head of Administration, Roost Foundation, a counter Trafficking and Gender Base Violence (GBV) Organisation owned by Okah–Donli on Thursday in Abuja.
While celebrating with children at the Roost Foundation headquarters to mark 2021 Children Day, at Roost Foundation headquarters, she expressed displeasure over the spate of child abductions and kidnapping in the school environment in some parts of the country.
Okah-Donli described it as a major threat to the future of the nation.
”I have mixed feelings concerning this year’s Children’s Day celebration.
”In the first place, I celebrate with our children on children’s day.
”They deserve to be celebrated, especially when viewed against the backdrop of series of life threatening situations in the last one year,” she said.
According to her, one cannot but thank God and also celebrate the real heroes who she described as the children.
“On the other hand, I feel pained in my heart that our children have continued to learn under an unsafe environment with escalating hostilities.
”It is a known fact that the present security challenges across Nigeria have taken a pitiable toll on the education of the children.
“Many of them have been caught in the crossfire of unfortunate unrest, some have lost their parents while others have dropped out of school.
“The prevailing tension-soaked academy calendar in the country is unhealthy and capable of truncating the desired future of our children, ” she said.
She, therefore, called for an improved peaceful learning environment for our children.
Okah-Donli reminded the bandit to be aware that the innocent children were not the cause of their grievances, adding that they must be spared from killing and kidnapping.
She called for the unconditional release of those children still being held in captivity by their captors, while also calling on government at all levels to ensure nationwide domestication of the various laws that tend to protect children.
Okah-Donli also called for law that would guarantee peaceful learning and living environment for our children as a gift to the children.
She said that Roost Foundation has launched the first animated movie series for children on gender based violence which can be downloaded from the foundation website www.roostfoundation.org
The immediate past Director-General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) also called for domestication of all necessary laws that would grant peaceful living environment children.
