Nigeria is the largest black African country with, according to a recent census, a population of 88 million people. It is said that every fourth African is a Nigerian. There are several ethnic groups, but three major tribes comprise the majority of the people: the Igbo in the East, the Yoruba in the West and the Hausa in the North. Nigeria plays a leading role in determining the future of Africa both at the global and regional levels.
Although endowed with rich natural resources and extensive human resources, Nigeria has not developed the necessary technological, industrial, managerial and political know-how to pull its resources together in a sound economy to take care of the basic needs of its population. As a result, poverty and hard living conditions are prevalent, affecting children in particular. The country faces social upheaval, cultural conflict, gradual industrialization and imperfect attempts at westernization.
Children in urban areas are quickly caught up in the daily struggle for survival and material gain. A situation analysis of child abuse and neglect in Nigeria, undertaken through the medium of Nigerian newspapers, found that child abandonment, sexual abuse, child neglect, vagrancy , kidnapping and hawking were the most reported forms of child abuse and neglect.
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