FG Validates 40+ Social Policies, Submits Long-Delayed Child Rights Report to UN

(Ms. Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim. Photo Credit; Bellanaija)

The federal government has validated over 40 new and revised policy documents on the welfare of women, children, and vulnerable populations, while also submitting Nigeria’s long-overdue combined 5th to 8th periodic country reports to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

The milestone was announced by the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Ms. Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, at the closing ceremony of a National Review and Validation Meeting held in Abuja.

The minister disclosed that a 2024 diagnostic review had found outdated policies, fragmented coordination, and an absence of standard operating procedures for frontline workers, prompting the four-day exercise which restructured Nigeria’s policy framework around women, children, families, and vulnerable populations.

Among the updated policies are a national boy child policy focused on mental development and protection, a revised national children policy addressing digital safety and online protection, a national care economy policy recognising and reducing the unpaid care burden on women, a Sexual and Gender-Based Violence and Sexual Assault Referral Centre policy standardising survivor support nationwide, and guidelines for chaperones establishing accountability rules for adults in contact with children.

Sulaiman-Ibrahim stressed that all documents were accompanied by oversight and implementation plans covering all 774 local government areas, warning that policies without execution guidelines amounted to nothing more than wishes.

She also urged civil servants to take up World Bank-backed SPESSE training to build a professional social sector workforce.

On Nigeria’s submission of its long-overdue UN child rights reports, the minister said the development reasserted the country’s leadership on the global stage.

She emphasised that the true measure of progress under President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda would not be found in conference rooms in Abuja but in tangible human outcomes including the security of a child in a rural village and the safety of a woman in the workplace.