UNICEF says 74% of children in Jigawa dimensionally poor, deprived of basic rights

The United Nations Children’s Education Fund (UNICEF) says not less than 74 per cent of children in Jigawa State are multidimensionally poor and are deprived of their basic rights.

The chief of the Kano UNICEF field office which covers Kano, Katsina and Jigawa, Rahma Farah, disclosed this at the Jigawa State 2022 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) launch held in Dutse, the state capital on Friday.

Farah said children in the state and in Northern Nigeria face severe multi-dimensional deprivations, especially in the North-West where almost all states have multidimensional poverty rates higher than the national average.

He, however, lamented that among states under the Kano UNICEF field, Jigawa had the worst child deprivation rate, as 73.9 per cent of children in the state were multidimensionally poor.

“Today, we have gathered in Jigawa to launch the findings and results of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS 6) for the Jigawa state. This MICS survey was carried out in 2021, and the results were released in August 2022,” Farah said.

“MICS is a survey carried out at the household level to provide statistically sound and comparable data on key development indicators related to children, women and vulnerable groups in the society

“Most children in Jigawa are deprived of their basic rights for survival, protection and development

Read also:Out-of-school children in Nigeria now 18.3m – UNICEF

“The MICS results in 2021 for Jigawa state reveal that while the state has made significant progress in some indicators, there are still indicators that either did not improve, such as the case of child birth registration, or are still below the national averages, such as the under-five mortality rate

“We are seeing that less than two per cent of the children assessed have demonstrated foundational reading and numeracy skills. This is an urgent call for immediate action. Today’s launching of the MICS in Jigawa is an urgent call for action.

“This is an emergency call for policymakers, community leaders, civil society organisations, politicians, state parliamentarians and international actors across all sectors to put in the most efforts and design innovative strategies to improve the current human development situation in the state,” the UN representative said.

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