A non-profit organisation, the Cece Yara Child Advocacy Centre, dedicated to preventing exploitation of child domestic workers, in collaboration with the Freedom Fund (USA), has held a forum on the need to empower child domestic workers and alleviate their plight in Lagos and across Nigeria. The forum with the theme: “Strengthening Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration for the Protection of Child Domestic Workers in Lagos State”, was funded by the Gift of the US government.The event brought together stakeholders, professionals, organizations and government agencies to discuss systemic solutions for protecting child domestic workers from exploitation, abuse, and neglect.Speaking during the forum, CEO, Cece Yara Child Advocacy Centre, Bisi Ajayi Kahinde, said, “We are here alongside other partners to deliberate and to strategise on eliminating the exploitation of child domestic workers. Children by virtue of cognitive physical and emotional ability, don’t have a voice, they even suffer in silence. Most of them are forced to do hazardous work that injures their sexual health, mental health and deprives them of humanity and childhood. We are here to take a disciplinary approach to canvass strategies to foster a drastic change in the exploitation of child domestic workers”.Project Lead, Cece Yara Child Advocacy Centre on Freedom Fund, Damilola Adenusi, said, “This is an advocacy that responds to cases of child domestic workers, especially to protect and respond to exploitation in Lagos. We are using several platforms to create awareness, engage in sensitisation programmes, and also provide shelters for child domestic workers who have no place to stay. We go further to link them to legal and other social services, providing forensic interviews, reporting cases to police, essentially reintegrating some of them that have suffered abuse by way of psychotherapy and other associated social initiatives. Also, we have been able to support 50 of them in different locations in Lagos”.State Coordinator, Child Protection Network, Lagos and Executive Coordinator, Bimbo Odukoya Foundation, Adorenke Ayolakin, said, “We are in 36 states in Nigeria including FCT. In Lagos state, we just expanded to 57 from the 20 local governments. So, we have presence in the grassroot, and we have our community child protection officers work for the best interest of every child. We also work with other agencies like Cece Yara, ministries, departments and agencies to ensure that the rights of every child is protected at all times. Also, we work with the police as well. Our work is to ensure that holistic support is given to every child, at every given time”.In addition, Deputy State Coordinator, Child Protection Network, Lagos, Alhaji Lateef Kayode said, “I work with Community Women’s Right, as a founder. I’m also head of rescue for child protection, Lagos state. I handle cases of children almost every time. We work in collaboration with community leaders, law enforcement agencies, neigbourhood safety corps and Civil Defence, to make the work easier for us.I was a victim of child domestic workers. My mother died when I was five years old. So at 12 years after my primary school, my grandmother asked me to go and work as a sales boy and live with my employer. I did domestic work till 12 midnight, and I would still go to school the following day. Sometimes after working I would start preparing food till 1.00am. And in the midst of all that, she would beat me if she met me sleeping at that late hour. At the age of 16 I had to leave and rented a house as a teenager. That made me think about those days and it has made me make concerted efforts to rescue children in such situation”.
