By Joy Mbachi/ Stephen Adeleye
Port. Harcourt, Aug.21,2026 Dr Ijeoma Onuoha- Ogwe, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Communication Officer in charge of children's visibility and reporting for children in the Enugu field office said that the body is a key tool for social reformation for decades in Nigeria.
Onuoha-Ogwe said that she covers the five states in the South - South zone of Nigeria, and two North Central states which are also very critical and strategic to the programming for children, that is Benu and Kogi, and the river states as well as Cross River.
She said during an interview with News Agency of Nigeria correspondents after the end of the two day zonal training of 40 media personnel across 10 states on ethical child reporting on Friday in Port Harcourt.
Onuoha-Ogwe disclosed that UNICEF engaged in child reporting in different aspects for almost two decades now and have worked along these lines critically, first with the academic partners, the universities .
She said that they initially started the mainstreaming of child rights curriculum into the curriculum of mass communication and journalism schools at the tertiary level in the zones where they cover in Nigeria, which has been very significant and positive uptake.
Onuoha-Ogwe said that student journalists now take up courses as most universities they have partnered with have been able to create courses, establish courses along the lines that meet the goaks of UNICEF.
She said that the significance of their various interventions encouraged them to go into new aspect of where they have partnered, which is relatively new but in the last two years, is in this aspect of training journalists that we partner with and even freelancers on ethical child rights reporting, effective and quality reporting of issues concerning children in everywhere.
The UNICEF media desk officer Enugu field office disclosed that their key partner for this is the Federal Ministry of Information that's uncovered the new area . In fact, they are the creators of this second aspect of child rights mainstreaming, which is about the capacity building of journalists.
She said that it's not the in-school journalists but tried in different route to create very detailed two-day course training modules that enables them have key resource persons who drive these trainings for the body.
Onuoha noted that in the past two days in Port Harcourt, they have worked with different sets of journalists, especially the broadcast media and a few of the prints, to also build their capacity so that children are reported effectively, in a quality manner, and in a timely manner.
"These are the ways we have tried to mainstream child rights reporting in Nigeria.Aside from that, child rights fulfillment of child rights is the duty of all key stakeholders to help to deliver the rights of children on a normal basis.
"There has been increase in poor child rights reporting which prompted the body to take train media professionals on ethical child rights reporting with expectation that the narrative will change with application of right protocols.
"There are great need to ensure that issues about children reflect on the public agenda and the government agenda for the people, being a very significant age group who are minors mostly.
"There is need for advocacy that will help them to fulfill their rights. So we are going to this aspect, moving to this aspect of ethical reporting. It's also trying to reinforce reporting based on safety, privacy and positive effect on child rights.
Also speaking to Ms Constance Iroele from Kids FM 101.7, PortHarcourt Broadcast journalist described the training as fulfilled and refreshed as a result of the training by UNICEF on child-sensitive reporting..
She said that' is because, apart from the fact that her radio station, as the name implies, Kids FM, are basically for the children, and of course for the whole family that the training has opened her sense of reporting on child rights much better.
Iroele said that the training is more like a retraining and a refresher as well. I mean, 10 years and more on the job, andI just learnt about application of right protocols in reporting child issues better,am grateful,"she said.
"This helps me to really understand how best to handle issues concerning children that we need to air on radio or discuss.
Iroele urged UNICEF to improve on its operations by inviting more broadcasters who touches grassroots more with family based reports
She called to the government as far as child rights is concerned to partner more with UNICEF, in their areas of need to be able to reach out to more challenging areas olin chikd development.
"first of all, a big applause to UNICEF for what they are doing, you know, training journalists. I would also suggest that UNICEF broaden their training to radio presenters, journalists who actually sit in the studio to have conversations from news to have proper terms to use and what not to talk about especially having social media news.
"Mosttimes the presenters take their stories from social media and they might flout some of these protocols, laws and ethical right, that are mentioned in this training. So the journalists who are writing the news, they know some of these things. They know these things already. But the radio presenters, they are really not carried along that much.
"So this training should also be extended to them, and Nigerian government, should wake up.as there are lot to be done, you know, when it comes to handling child-sensitive issues or children-related issues,",she said.