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UNICEF contributes to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals in Nigeria with a mandate to advocate for the protection of children’s rights, to help meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities to reach their full potential. UNICEF’s Nigeria country programme: Aims to accelerate the realization of the rights of all c...
Job Number: 514028
Location: Abuja with frequent travels to focus states
Work Type : Consultancy
Purpose of Assignment
Rationale/Justification
A violence free learning environment is one of the fundamental human rights of children. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in several Articles requires Governments to ensure that children grow up, learn, complete the education cycle and develop in a violent free environment. Specifically, Article 19 mandates Governments to ensure that children are protected from all forms of violence. Article 34 requires States Parties to protect children from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse while Article 37 mandates Governments to ensure that no child is subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. While the Nigeria Child’s Rights
Act 2003 establish a framework for child protection state level domestication and implementation remains limited. Ongoing effort at implementing the law has adopted a child protection system strengthening strategy which focuses on the establishment of a system with a set of linked and coherent structures, functions and capacities that can prevent and respond to all child protection concerns. It integrates the actions of families (and children themselves), communities, formal and informal laws and practices, state and non-state actors across all sectors (education, health, social welfare, justice and law enforcement), to work together to protect children. It looks at all the actions needed to protect children along a continuum, from promotion of a safe environment for the child, to prevention through to response and restorative services for children at risk of, or experiencing, violence, exploitation and abuse. When all parts of the system are established and function effectively and in a coordinated manner, children will be protected from abuse.
For child protection system to effectively prevent and respond to violence against children in school it is imperative to establish and operationalize structures and mechanism for reporting, tracking, referral, response and monitoring in all early childhood development centres, primary and secondary schools to ensure collective and holistic approach to eliminate violence against children in schools. Such mechanism should also encourage active participation of local governments, religious and traditional/cultural leaders, school based management committees, parents, guardians, head teachers, teachers, pupils and local community leaders in addressing violence against children in schools. Schools are also central platform for socialization and learning for children which have a great potential to educate children on risks management, prevention of violence and reporting of cases and availability of services.
Teachers have an additional responsibility to protect children by abstaining from inflicting any harm to children but also to report cases to the appropriate authorities. Considering the centrality of schools to ensure the protection of children, schools must be guided by mandatory reporting policies establishing clear reporting mechanisms, teachers must be capacitated to educate children and manage classrooms without resorting to violence and children must learn how to prevent violence and report cases.
It is in furtherance of the above, UNICEF is seeking to hire a national consultant to be based in Abuja to provide technical leadership in the integration of child protection principles in ending violence against children in schools into the education system including ongoing Programmes, curricula and policies in alignment with the child protection system strengthening strategy under the supervision of Child Protection specialist (social welfare) and Child Protection System Strengthening manager based in Abuja.
Major Tasks to be Accomplished by each Consultant
End Product (e.g. final report, article, document etc.)
Qualifications or Specialized Knowledge/Experience Required
Note
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