Poverty, displacement and inadequate family support are still driving children from their homes into orphanages and other residential care facilities in Nigeria, child rights advocate Eghosa A. Erhumwunse has said.
Erhumwunse, the National Director of SOS Children’s Villages Nigeria, raised the concern on Tuesday at the National Alternative Care Consultative Forum in Abuja, where stakeholders examined reforms to Nigeria’s child protection system.
He said many children entering residential care still have living families but are separated from them because their households are unable to cope with poverty, displacement, disability, conflict, abuse, neglect or inadequate support.
“Too many children still enter residential care because families are overwhelmed by poverty, displacement, disability, conflict, abuse, neglect or lack of support,” he said.
Erhumwunse said Nigeria had established child protection frameworks, including the Child Rights Act and National Guidelines for Alternative Care, but warned that legislation alone would not protect vulnerable children without effective implementation.
He identified inconsistent gatekeeping, overstretched social workers, fragmented data, inadequate funding and limited participation of children in decisions affecting them as major weaknesses in the system.
According to him, only five states had formally adopted the National Guidelines for Alternative Care into state practice by the end of 2025.
He urged the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, state child welfare authorities, development partners and the judiciary to translate existing policies into practical measures that prevent unnecessary separation of children from their families.
“Alternative care reform is not simply about moving children out of institutions. It is about building a system strong enough to prevent unnecessary separation in the first place,” he said.
The Minister of Women Affairs, Hajiya Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, said every Nigerian child should have the opportunity to grow up in a safe and supportive family environment.
She expressed concern about the absence of reliable nationwide data on children living in orphanages and alternative care facilities and directed state permanent secretaries to profile the facilities in their jurisdictions and establish the actual number of children in their care.
The minister said the government would strengthen child protection measures from the ward and local government levels through the sub-national structure.
UNICEF Child Protection Specialist, Dr Godwin Odo, said the adoption of policies would have little effect unless they were properly implemented.
Odo said available evidence showed that children generally thrive best within families and communities, making the strengthening of family-based care a critical part of alternative care reform.
Erhumwunse said the outcome of the two-day forum should be judged by concrete, state-specific commitments with clear timelines, resources and responsibility for implementation rather than by speeches alone.
Poverty, displacement still push Nigerian children into residential care — Advocate
