UNICEF has condemned the sentencing of a 13-year-old boy, Omar Farouq, to ten years in prison with menial labor by the Kano State Sharia Court.
The sentence was given after Farouq was convicted of blasphemy.
Peter Hawkins, the UNICEF representative in Nigeria, said, “The sentencing of this child – 13-year-old Omar Farouq – to ten years in prison with menial labor is wrong. It also negates all core underlying principles of child rights and child justice in Nigeria, and by implication, Kano State.”
The sentence is a contravention of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which was ratified in Nigeria in 1991.
It also violates the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (which Nigeria ratified in 2001) and Nigeria’s Child Rights Act 2003, which domesticates Nigeria’s international obligations to protect children’s right to life, survival, and development.
UNICEF called on the Nigerian government and the Kano State administration to review the case urgently with a view to reversing the sentence.
