HISTORICAL PATTERNS OF CHILD TREATMENT IN NIGERIA: A PERSPECTIVE Egodi Uchendu ABSTRACT A significant proportion of Nigerian children have not benefitted from regional and international provisions on fundamental human rights and the rights of children. Their citizenship rights are also not guaranteed. An attempt is made to look at the historical patterns of child socialization in the four most populous ethnic groups in Nigeria responsible for 78 per cent of the entire population of the country and to relate this to contemporary circumstances of Nigerian children. This comparison yielded a different result from what was anticipated. While certain patterns of child treatment can be traced to past cultural practices, the degree of the modern manifestations cannot simply be explained by linking them to the past. It will be misleading to conclude that the neglect and denial of basic rights of Nigerian children in recent times derives from traditional cultural practices, despite the survival of certain legacies from the past. Indeed factors traceable to the country’s economic crisis and political ineptitude are largely responsible for the circumstances of children in contemporary Nigeria. INTRODUCTION Some scholars have underscored the fact that the status of children in majority of the world is on the decline.1 With respect to Africa, Brandon and Rwomire (2001: x) observed as follows: “comparing the status of African women and children to the status of women and children in the majority of the world, or comparing their current status to 2 their own status 10 years ago, it would appear that there has been a considerable decline in their welfare”. Meanwhile, in 1992 Women in Nigeria (WIN), a non-governmental organisation for the welfare of Nigerian women had produced a pamphlet titled “Child Abuse” which aimed at creating awareness on the mistreatment of children in Nigeria. These assessments of African and Nigerian children’s welfare are hinged on notions of child use and/or abuse and based on the stipulations of international and continental documents. The claims of a decline in children’s circumstances however, provoke the need for a historical examination of the condition of children in Nigeria. Incidentally, unlike the attention given issues about women, not enough academic studies have been carried out on Nigerian children’s lives and issues about them.2 This essay depends on interviews, media reports,3 ethnographic studies and relevant international documents. It engages with aspects of Nigerian children’s lives both in traditional and modern times. The discussion of children’s lives in Nigeria would also be considered against the stipulations of international and continental documents,4 the bases on which a link was drawn by WIN (1999) and Brandon & Rwomire (2001) respectively in their assessments of African, and specifically, Nigerian children’s experiences. Folklore very common with all Nigerian ethnic communities alongside colonial-sponsored ethnographic studies provides relevant evidence of Nigerian children’s rights and privileges in their societies that is helpful for this examination. As the world moved towards capitalism, efforts were made to regulate the role of children to avoid their exploitation in the emerging world capitalist order. In 1959 the United Nations came up with the Declaration on the Rights of the Child. In 1981 the OAU also came up with its African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights. The United Nations as well as the OAU called for respect for a child’s life; emphasising the 3 importance of providing opportunities and facilities for the healthy and dignified development of the child and requested for the protection of the child. The United Nations General Assembly in adopting the Convention on the Rights of the Child did so on the recognition that children have needs and human rights that extend far beyond basic concepts of protection and these needs evolve with age and maturity (UNICEF 1990; OHCHR 2004). Children, in this paper refers to persons who, according to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 1999 Nigerian constitution, are under the age of eighteen. Persons who fall within this categorisation, therefore, are infants, toddlers, pre- adolescents, and adolescents. The primary consideration in identifying who children are is age and not social or marital status. This breakdown is purposeful and should be used to identify those represented in this discussion. International statistics indicating that 43.4% of Nigerians are under the age of fifteen shows that children under eighteen years of age constitute close to half of Nigeria’s entire human population (CIA 2004). CHILDREN IN TRADITIONAL SETTINGS (THE PRE-CAPITALIST ERA) Nigeria is a multi ethnic country with a wide range of cultures in operation in the past two centuries. Out of an estimated 250 or more ethnic groups, the dominant ones are the Igbo and Yoruba in southern Nigeria and Hausa and Fulani in northern Nigeria. The Ijaw, found mostly in the Niger Delta also in southern Nigeria, is the most populous minority group. Together, these four ethnic communities constitute 78% of Nigeria’s entire population (Nigeria 2007). Cultural traits among these groups varied during the pre-capitalist era but certain features were obvious: all were predominantly patriarchal, including the Igbo which had a small but significant matrilineal section; and their basic 4 cultural features were affected by their religious practices. Various brands of the indigenous religions—along with Christianity and Islam, depending on which applied— were found in these four ethnic societies. Thus, the operating cultural norms together with religious views determined the patterns of child socialization among these groups. Attitudes towards children were generally warm and positive since many parents desired children and regarded them as gifts or special visitors. Much time and effort were expended on child nurturing in infancy, lasting upwards of two to three years (Last 2000; Ottenberg 1958: 48; Smith 1956). Child socialization—the process of integrating a child within its community and acquainting it with the social norms— commenced from the time the baby was weaned. Thus, children were made aware of their society and how to behave within the limits of its norms. Socialization was a process that combined moral instruction with some degree of child work. Parents, older siblings, and members of the extended family jointly participated in the nurturing and socialization of a child. An old Igbo proverb, nwa bu nke oha—the child belongs to all, was used to encourage every member of the society to play a part in a child’s socialization process. A related proverb among the Yoruba says Eni kan ni o mbimo gbogbo ara ni o nto—the birthing process may be an individual task but the child’s upbringing is a communal responsibility. 5 This ideology of child socialization as a communal responsibility pervaded nearly all the Nigerian cultural groups during the colonial period. Phoebe Ottenberg’s account of “The Afikpo Ibo of eastern Nigeria” (1965) and Adiele Afigbo’s Ropes of Sand (1981) give facts about growing up and child socialization in Igboland. Using the Afikpo Igbo as one point of reference, child socialization was non-coercive in colonial Igbo society. In infancy and early childhood, children were very close to their mothers, many of whom rarely employed force in dealing with them 5 (Ottenberg 1958). Between the ages of five and six, boys ran errands for their parents and older members of the extended family while girls of similar age cared for younger children. For both sexes, training for adult tasks began at the age of eight from which time boys helped their fathers in the farm and girls helped their mothers with house work and farming (Ottenberg 1965: 23). Until the 1920s, the menace of child kidnappers restrained children from visiting the farms unless in the company of adults and therefore from doing any work, or playing, outside the family compound and away from the watchful eyes of an adult. The only exception was in the evenings when children left their compounds in bands to collect water for domestic use (Edwards 1969: 31; Afigbo 1981: 164). Considerable periods of time were spent playing with friends and in entertainment within the confines of the family compound, which was usually walled round. By early adolescence, a girl was expected to assume much of the housework from her mother. At this stage girls did more domestic work besides farming while boys concentrated largely on manual work. Discipline, the training of the mind and character to develop self-control, right conduct, and right attitude to life (Dopamu 2004), was approached in various ways but often with religion as a determining factor. In traditional Igbo society the child occupied a humble position (Afigbo 1981: 148). The Igbo, conditioned by their culture and Igbo religious worldview, were described as meditative and tolerant; utilising their mouths more than their hands to discipline misdeeds (Ohadike 1994). Male heads of household employed the tactics of denial to teach children self-control. It is common knowledge that certain delicacies, namely eggs and gizzard, were not previously consumed by children in Igboland because of the understanding that by denying these items children would not develop a craving for them, which could potentially lead them to theft and 6 other socially-censured actions. Denial was, therefore, to check against the inability to control one’s desire for them. But, occasionally, exceptions were made in favour of a dearly loved child who could sometimes receive bits of an egg or a gizzard from an indulgent father. Among the Ijaw, children under the age of five were assigned simple chores such as sweeping the family compound, looking after younger siblings, and running errands. At that age discipline was not strict and consisted mostly in parents or older siblings yelling at a child for any misdemeanour or acts of stubbornness.