The United Nations Children’s Fund has organised a two-day media dialogue in Enugu, the capital of Enugu State, with online publishers to discuss the convention on child rights, which came into force through the UN General Assembly’s resolution 44/20 of 20 November, 1989.
The dialogue, which began on Thursday (today) and ends on Friday (tomorrow), was put together by the Child Rights Information Bureau of the Federal Ministry of Information, in collaborating with UNICEF.
There were 15 selected publishers of online newspapers from different parts of the country and representatives of major conventional newspapers based in Enugu, as well as some university lecturers in attendance.
A UNICEF Communication Specialist, Geoffrey Njoku, kick-started the discussion by making a run-down of the contents of the convention on the child rights.
Njoku said all the countries of the world signed the convention on child rights except the United States of America and Somalia.
According to Njoku, there are four key principles of the Child Rights Convention.
These are non-discrimination, best interest of the child, life survival and development as well as respecting the views of the child.
He said that the provisions, which are universal and indivisible are inter-dependent and inter-related.
At the dialogue, Dr. Chikwendu Ogbonnaya, a public policy advocate, also gave a lecture on special responsibility and public interest in online journalism practice.
It was titled: Defining a public policy for online journalism.
Also, Dr. Abigail Ogwezzy of the University of Lagos would give a talk on perspectives of children’s rights in current online journalism practice in Nigeria, while Akin Jimoh of UNICEF Nigeria would deliver a lecture on children’s right and online journalism practice in Nigeria: setting an agenda for children.
The publishers are expected to end the dialogue looking collectively at the online opportunities for child rigv