An Appraisal of Juvenile Justice in Nigeria: Child's Rights Case Study

This case study provides an appraisal of the juvenile justice system in Nigeria, focusing on a child's right to independent legal representation and a free trial. It explores the historical context of juvenile justice in Nigeria, rooted in British colonial governance, and its evolution to the present day. The study delves into the definition of 'juvenile' under Nigerian law, referencing the Child's Rights Act of 2003 and the Penal Code, while also considering international conventions on the rights of the child. It examines the challenges faced by Nigerian children, including poverty, inadequate education, and family instability, which often lead them into contact with the legal system. The research draws upon various articles, journals, and reports to assess the effectiveness of the juvenile justice system, highlighting issues such as the quality of life for young offenders, limitations in mental health services, and the importance of procedural justice in policing. The study also emphasizes the need for a restorative approach to juvenile justice, focusing on offender engagement and rehabilitation rather than solely on punishment. The research concludes by underscoring the significance of protecting the human rights of children within the juvenile justice system, aligning with international standards and the measures taken by the United Nations Security Council.

Running Head: INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
International Human Rights
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
Research Trail
The topic on which I worked was AN APPRAISAL OF JUVENILE JUSTICE IN
NIGERIA; A CASE STUDY OF CHILD'S RIGHT TO INDEPENDENT LEGAL
REPRESENTATION AND FREE TRIAL". The module directed me to investigate on the nature
and effectiveness of child rights in Nigeria. It specifically dictated me to focus on the extent to
which the Nigerian Child’s Rights comply with the international child rights. In the due to course
of my work I have received the help of my supervisor who suggested me to collect information
from the already existing secondary data and compare them with the conventions of child rights
of UN.I have taken the help of articles, journals and, news reports along with the Child’ Rights
Manual of Nigeria. The authors of these articles are scholars and the articles are the result of
their life-long research on the topic. Hence, the article is highly reliable in terms of gathering
data on the laws, codes, sections and case studies under the Nigerian context.
The first article is written by OlayinkaAtilola, Bolanle Ola, GbonjubolaAbiri and
Abiodun O. Adewuya. and explores the relationship between the quality of life and
psychopathology. It also examines the well-being of the young offenders. The article is aimed at
testing the hypothesis that lower quality of life is associated with the self-rated psychopathology
in the adolescents in the correctional institutions of Lagos. The methods used in the article to
assess the psychopathology were the Strength and Difficulty Questionnaires. The quality of life
was measured by the Paediatric Quality of Life. The findings of the report suggest that although
it is difficult discern the relationship between the two components, in the adolescents, it is
realistic to assume that mental health issues treatment can leave a positive impact on the
rehabilitation. It has helped me to assess the psychological aspect of the juvenile offenders and

2INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
the life they are provided in the child correction homes of Nigeria and get a deeper insight into
the systems of the country.
The next article has been equally helpful for me to analyze the mental health service
provided under the juvenile justice system. This article is aimed at exploring the limitations of
the mental health service in the juvenile justice system in Nigeria. The article further highlights
the suitable steps required to remold this particular system in the modern mental health services
especially in Nigeria. The authors of this article namely O. Atilola, G. Abiri and B. Ola have
contributed to the article and the data they have provided are of great help and importance.
The third article I have taken help from is written by Oluwagbenga Michael Akinlabiis
one of the most beneficial articles to accomplish my course work. This article assesses the
strength of the procedural justice impacts as compared to the other police behaviors. It is also a
well documentation of the latent characteristics of the youth of Nigeria. It has been found that in
the modern and more developed western societies especially the UK and the USA, the judgement
of people regarding the policies rest on the procedural justice. The article is aimed at exploring
the chances of bridging this gap in literature. The authors have collected primary data from six f
the secondary schools of Nigeria. The results inevitably confirm the importance of procedural
justice for determining the effectiveness of the police and their legitimacy too.
The next resource which has been of greater help for me is a book written by Franklin E.
Zimring and David S. Tanenhaus. The volume has been contributory of a series of studies
regarding the juvenile justice. The aim of this series was to spread the spatial, the temporal and
the other disciplinary aspects which are available for the youth policy students along with the
juvenile court. The book Age of Anxiety, further reveals the social histories help to analyze the
youth crime that is a significant concern in the twentieth –century context. This book is a

3INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
commendable document fir understanding and knowing the division of labor related to the child
justice in the global context. This volume has captured the social histories with greater details. I
have become familiar with the child justice scenario of the world at large.
The next article is titled as Restorative justice and non-custodial measures: Panacea to
recidivism and prison congestion in Nigeria. The article re-explores the impacts of non-
reformation in the correctional institutes, the delay in the trials, prison congestions, bureaucracy,
on the foreign investment, social justice and principles of human rights. It consequently affects
the infrastructural, economic and development of the state. Since the criminal justice system
includes the police m the courts and the correctional agencies who are responsible for providing
solutions to the legal issues, these departments have to be reliable enough. The article precisely
recommends a suitable framework for praising the traditional system that is the ‘imprisonment
‘to be focused on. It also asks the departments to pursue more offender engagement for the
prohibition of crimes having guaranteed the punishment of the criminals or the offenders.
Hence, it can be said that the resources I selected to take help from have proved highly beneficial
for me in terms of providing me necessary information and reviewing the other aspects of the
central theme.
The article of Ogwezzy, Adebayo and Kekere (2016), is a significant research for the
case. The reason behind it significance is that the article justifies the need of a different approach
to handle the children or teenagers who committed crime. However in major portion of the
article, the authors are concerned with the infrastructure inside the correctional homes and
environment. Along with that, the concerns like the bureaucracy, the delay in trial and the lack of
investment are portrayed in the paper by the authors as the factors responsible for the significant
delay in the production of the justice. A major finding of the paper is the impact that the criminal

4INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
engagement or the offender management. During the days of the juvenile imprisonment, the
mode of correction which relates to the punishing nature, is said to be impractical for the
children and the teenagers. Rather, the authors are able to comment on the success of the other
method which is the offender engagement. The form of correction is seen to have a much greater
impact than the punishment and thus the functionality of the justice system portrayed in the
paper is of great significance in the appraisal of the juvenile justice with a precise focus on the
economic growth, stability and the development of the country.
The article of is of great significance in the specification of the human rights that the
children and juvenile offenders are eligible to experience. The paper is notably linked to the
measures that United Nations Security Council has taken. The authors are able to assess the
measures that can be considered as the unilateral coercive measures and at the same time
evaluates the impact of the comprehensive measures of the United Nation’s Security Council.
Along with that, the paper is significant in the evaluation of the conditions under which the
means of pressure can be applied over states, legal entities or a specific individual. The
experience of the human rights of the children or the juvenile offenders are well guarded by the
findings where the authors portrayed that the means of pressure can only be applied by the states
and that has to be legal in accordance of the International law. Apart from this, the means of
pressure can also be applied by states where the illegality of them is excluded in accordance with
the International law. Apart from this, every means are legally prohibited under the International
law.

5INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
Topic - AN APPRAISAL OF JUVENILE JUSTICE IN NIGERIA; A CASE STUDY OF
CHILD'S RIGHT TO INDEPENDENT LEGAL REPRESENTATION AND FREE
TRIAL"
Nigeria is one of the most populous sub- Saharan nation having a youth population of
less than 15 years’ age as a predominance. It is quite sorrowful that most of the children in the
country of Nigeria go through a life of poverty, inadequate educational opportunities, family
instability along with poor mental and physical health condition. They are not facilitated with the
opportunity to fulfill their aspirations. This inability has lead the children to face the wrath of the
legal system of Nigeria. As per the views of Atilola et al. (2018), the first priority of the social

6INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
institution is to ensure the justice for people. The justice system also helps to involve the
institution like the courts, the police station, the remand homes, prisons and the rehabilitation
centers. These are the main agencies which positively fight against the crimes. According to
Atilola, Abiri and Ola (2018), the police is responsible for the identification of crime in the
locality and apprehension of those people who do not abide by the laws for criminals. However,
the justice system in Nigeria has suffered from many criticisms especially from the general
public. It is the fact of the time, when the reformations were yet to be implemented. The paper
will be focused on the AN APPRAISAL OF JUVENILE JUSTICE IN NIGERIA; A CASE
STUDY OF CHILD'S RIGHT TO INDEPENDENT LEGAL REPRESENTATION AND FREE
TRIAL. The word “juvenile” has many definitions from many aspects. According to Akinlabi
(2017), the main criteria to be referred to as a juvenile is criteria of age. He further argues that
the dependence on age also sometimes fails to take into account the society, the physical and
psychological growth of the child.
It is also true that the word ‘child’ and ‘juvenile ‘are used interchangeably. Adherence to
the Conventions on the Rights of the Child would suggest that every human being who is under
the age of 18 can be considered as a child. On the other hand, the Child’s Rights Act of 2003
suggests that a child to be a person who has not achieved the age of 18 yet. The Penal Code says
that if a child who is under the age of 17 commits an offence, or between the age group of 7 to
12 will not be considered as an offence (Bush and Tanenhaus2018). The mist important natural
resources of human beings are the children without whom the perpetuity of human lives will be
stopped. As the law dictionary of Black suggests: children are the “progeny, offspring of
parentage, unborn or recently born human beings”. The common law establishes the juvenile age
for girls is 12 and boys is 14. However, after the identification of a child or juvenile, it is highly

7INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
necessary to explain the concept of juvenile justice properly (Bartlett et al. 2016). It is mandatory
to know that the juvenile justice is not only for those who are at bar with the law, it also covers
those children too who require protection and care(Ibrahim 2015). The current juvenile justice
system of Nigeria cannot be understood accurately without its reference to the colonial past the
country had gone through once.
An Overview of Nigeria’s Government:
The British Colonial government established the Nigerian criminal government in order
to support the economic interests. The juvenile justice is an important component of this system.
The whole embodiment of the Nigerian justice system is a strong weapon of oppression. The
National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) claims in its report that the Juvenile Justice
Administration is the type of system which is applicable to the juveniles and different from the
type of justice applied on the adults. The children do come under the contact with the justice
system for the juveniles for so many reasons. It requires the announcement of the protection or
the welfare measures in terms of juveniles who are involved in the commission of offences
(Bamgbose 2015). The juvenile justice system can be considered to be one of the most important
and integral part of the criminal justice system (Ogwezzy, Adebayo and Kekere2016). The
exploration of the current juvenile justice system in Nigeria would suggest that in the indigenous
Nigeria societies, a credible justice system existed too. It can be said that the informal justice
system in Nigeria has come up to the present situation of today that is institutional in nature.
However, the juvenile justice system of the indigenous culture has not yet been addressed by the
Nigerian justice system. It is noteworthy that in the places like Libya and Malawi, the
constitution perceives a child as a person under the age of 16. The majority of countries like
Algeria, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gambia, Egypt, Benin have considered the age of below 18 years to

8INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
be the crossline between childhood to adulthood (Perlin 2013). However, Nigeria has
significantly developed itself regarding the juvenile justice system and trying their best to adhere
to the international children’ rights (Douhan2017). In order to evaluate the extent to which
Nigeria has become successful in complying with the international juvenile children’ rights.
The International Bill of Human Rights:
The international bill of rights claims that human rights solely belong to all the human
beings irrespective of their sex, residence, nationality, ethnicity, color, religion or any other
status (Shah 2014). The human rights are applicable to all ages and the children also do have the
similar rights like the adults. Notably, children are considered to be a vulnerable group which
needs to have some particular rights designed for their protection (Possi 2017). The human rights
entail both the rights as well as the obligations. In the year 1948, when the United Nations
Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the movement of
international human rights became more powerful and strengthened. In the same year, for the
first time, a common standard for all nation and people was declared(Barhumanrights.org 2019).
The purpose of the UN was to preserve the international security and peace, to grow friendly and
cooperative relationship among all the nations, become a center for the harmonizing all the
nation’s actions. It also aimed at cooperating and solving the international issues related to the
protection of the human rights and promote the rights. It is also noteworthy in this regard that the
UDHR’s any provision has served to form the part of the international law. The basic rights of
freedom such as the right to nationality, liberty and life, religion, conscience and others
irrespective of men or women are entitled (Atua 2013). Among the UN human rights bodies, the
charter based bodies and the treaty based bodies are important.

9INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
In the year 2006, The human rights council was established for the first time. The UN
commission that was established in the year 1946 became replaced by this new establishment by
the UN General Assembly(Barhumanrights.org 2019). However, Nigeria has notably ratified all
the nine core international human rights. Few of the UN human rights treaties which have been
ratified by Nigeria are as follows:
The convention against the discrimination in education.
The International convention on the discarding of all types of racial discrimination.
The International covenant on civil and political rights
The International covenant on economic, social and cultural rights.
The convention no 138 on the minimum criteria of age for the admission to employment
The Convention of discarding all types of discrimination against women.
The convention that concerns the immediate action and prohibition of the worst form of child
labor.
The protocol on the convention on the child rights on the child selling, child pornography and the
child prostitution.
The Treaties of Child Rights:
However, there are some treaties too related to the children which have been signed by
Nigeria but still has not been ratified. These are the convention for the traffic suppressions in
persons and the exploitation of others’ prostitution. It has been signed by Nigeria in the year
2003. Another treaty is the optional protocol to the convention on the Child Rights and their
involvement in the armed conflict (Beqiraj and McNamara 2014). In Nigeria there are few such

10INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
situations when the enforcements of the child rights arise(Barhumanrights.org 2019). Firstly, it is
when the public authority or state body is directly claimed for having violated the child rights.
Taken for example, when under the police custody a child is not treated in the proper manner,
become subject to trials which are unfair or face the disproportion of punishment by a la court
(Sha’aban Ado 2018).
Secondly, when the state is unable to act according to the positive obligations regarding
protecting a child from violations and tortures or identifying and punishing those people who
have harmed the children. Taken for example, when the police departments fail to investigate a
case of child abuse which ultimately results in the death of the child or eve the State authorities
are unable to take up proper measures to prohibit the worsening child labor practices (Swick
2017). Nigeria has some of the important laws which deal with the rights of the children those
who are in conflict with the judiciary are: The Nigerian Constitution, the Child’s Rights Act or
the position where a State has not yet incorporated the Child’s Rights Act, the Children and
Young Person Act and the Criminal law which is both procedural and substantive
(Barhumanrights.org 2019).
The Constitution of Nigeria:
In the year 1993, a children’s bill was drafted having ratified the conventions on the
rights of the child in 1991. The aim of this bill was to incorporate the principles which are
enlisted in the AU and the CRC (Convention on the Rights of the Child) charter regarding the
rights and welfare of the child in Nigeria. The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria who
is Chief Olusegun Obasanjo assisted this bill and it came out as the Child’ Rights Act 2003. The
states are also expected to adopt and adapt the child’ rights act in the law of the state. The
constitution of Nigeria provides the allowance to the states to make the laws regarding the issue

11INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
of protection of child’ rights (Ogunniran 2015). The Act declares a person is considered to be a
child if he/she is below the age of eighteen. The basics of CRA suggests that a child ‘s dignity,
survival and development, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom from
discrimination, freedom from emotional, physical and mental injury, honor and reputation, rest
and leisure, spiritual freedom will be protected (Onuoha 2013).
The Provisions of CRA:
Notably, the Act also declares the prevention of child marriage, genital mutilation, child
pornography, using the children for the criminal activities, forced labor of children along with
the employment of children for domestic help (Martins et al. 2017). The Act is also against the
buying, hiring and selling of children in the local or foreign markets. The recruitment of children
into the armed forces is equally despised by the Act. The CRA provides the responsibilities of
the children to the parents, the guardians, authorities and the institutions to guide, train and
educate the children so that they can live freely in the world with all their responsibilities. The
responsibilities of the children are to work to the cohesion of their families and relate to others in
spirit of tolerance and consultation (Ogwo 2013). They are also expected to respect their parents
and the elders, serve the State and the country with their physical and intellectual qualities. They
must contribute to the moral development of the society and the world at large. They are
supposed to respect the ideals if equality, freedom, justice and humaneness for all the citizens of
the world (Bizimana 2015).
The Family Courts:
Nigeria has also established the family courts intended to hear and determine the matters
associated to the children. The courts are established both at the State and Federal level. The