Parental Child Abduction from the Lenses of Nigerian Laws

Abstract

Parents play the role of a shield to protect the children, but when family breaks down, the children may become victims. Parental child adoption may result from family breakdown and could result in danger for the child. Utilising the doctrinal approach, the paper reviews the available legal regime to protect children from parental child abduction. The paper evaluates the available legal framework, notable the Convention on the Rights of the Child states and the Nigerian Child Rights Act to determine whether parental child abduction is expressly or impliedly prohibited. The paper examines the provisions of several international and domestic laws on child protection. It finds that no domestic law in Nigeria specifically provide for an offence of parental child abduction, but the laws indirectly frown at and punish parental child abduction. and that  Nigeria has not ratified some relevant international conventions on child abduction like The Hague Convention and even those ratified are yet to be domesticated. The paper recommends that the Nigerian laws like the Child Right Act, 2003 should be reviewed to specifically provide for offence of parental child abduction. Nigeria should also ratify and domesticate some international conventions on child protection such as the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.