Nigeria’s Federal Government has launched a formal process to reform the country’s 22-year-old child protection law, citing a dramatic surge in abuse cases and the emergence of digital threats that the existing legislation was never designed to address.
Attorney-General and Minister of Justice Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) made the announcement in Abuja at the inauguration of the Committee on the Review of the Child Rights Act (CRA), warning that the 2003 law no longer reflects the realities facing Nigerian children today. “One accepted feature of a good law is that it must evolve with society,” Fagbemi said, adding that the review could result in a full repeal and re-enactment of the existing legislation rather than routine amendments.
The urgency of the overhaul is underscored by troubling statistics. Reported child abuse cases nearly tripled from 3,943 in 2021 to 9,279 in 2024, according to Justice Eberechi Suzzette Nyesom-Wike of the Court of Appeal, who chairs the review committee. Conviction rates, she noted, have remained persistently low throughout the same period.
Fagbemi identified a range of modern threats the original law failed to anticipate, including the recruitment of children by terrorist groups, online grooming, sextortion, cyberbullying, and the proliferation of child pornography networks. He also pointed to harmful traditional practices — among them child-witch branding and female genital mutilation — as areas requiring stronger statutory protections.
Beyond new threats, both officials flagged deep structural problems within the existing framework. Justice Nyesom-Wike highlighted constitutional contradictions that continue to enable child marriage in parts of the country, as well as inconsistent enforcement across states that leaves millions of children without effective legal protection. Approximately 20 million Nigerian children are currently out of school, she said, describing the figure as a symptom of a broader crisis in child welfare.
The AGF called on state governors and Houses of Assembly to domesticate any reforms at the state level, stressing the need for a uniform national child protection framework. He also linked the initiative to President Bola Tinubu’s designation of 2026 as the “Year of Social Development and Families in Nigeria.”
The committee, co-chaired by Minister of Women Affairs Hajiya Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, includes representatives from the judiciary, civil society organisations, and development partners including UNICEF.
