The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has raised concerns over the state of child protection in Nigeria, revealing that six in every 10 children experience some form of abuse, while only two in five children under five have their births registered.

UNICEF also disclosed that two in every five young women in Nigeria were married before the age of 18, describing the figures as a stark reminder of the urgent need to strengthen child protection systems nationwide.

Speaking at the Child Protection Mid-Year Review and consultations for UNICEF’s 2028-2032 Country Programme in Abuja, UNICEF Nigeria’s Chief of Child Protection, Natalie McCauley, said the statistics represented millions of children whose safety, identity and future opportunities remained at risk.

“These figures are not merely statistics. They represent children whose safety, identity, education, health and future opportunities are at risk,” she said.

McCauley urged governments and development partners to adopt a more focused, evidence-driven approach to child protection, warning that national progress often masks deep inequalities across states and communities.

She noted that government-led and UNICEF-supported interventions recorded significant achievements in 2025, including support for nearly 120,000 vulnerable children with protection services, expansion of community child protection structures, strengthening of the frontline protection workforce, acceleration of birth registration and diversion of more than 1,000 children from detention through non-custodial measures.

While acknowledging the gains, she cautioned against complacency, noting, “A national result can conceal deep subnational disparities. A target can be achieved while the child in a remote community, the adolescent girl facing multiple risks, the child with a disability, the child on the move, or the child affected by conflict remains beyond the reach of services.

“Our task today is therefore not only to ask, ‘What did we deliver?’ but also, ‘Who did we not reach and why?'”

McCauley said UNICEF’s 2026-2029 Strategic Plan, which serves as the organisation’s final push towards achieving the child-related Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, targets protecting 350 million children globally from violence by 2029.

She said achieving that goal would require governments and partners to focus resources where needs are greatest, scale up proven interventions and strengthen existing government systems rather than create parallel structures.

“For Child Protection, this means we must be more disciplined about our choices. We cannot attempt to do everything, everywhere, in the same way.

“We must identify the deprivations that are most severe, the locations where risks are concentrated, the solutions that have evidence of effectiveness, and the partnerships and financing required to take those solutions to scale,” she said.

She stressed that child protection underpins national development, noting that children exposed to violence, child marriage or lack of legal identity are less likely to access education, healthcare and other essential services.

“Protection is therefore not an add-on to development; it is one of the conditions that makes development possible,” she said.

McCauley also called for stronger collaboration across sectors, arguing that no single institution could address the multiple vulnerabilities affecting children.

“A child does not experience life in sectors. The same girl may be out of school, at risk of child marriage, without a birth certificate, affected by malnutrition and living in a household under severe economic pressure, she noted, stressing that no single Ministry, UNICEF section or organisation can address these deprivations alone.

She urged stakeholders to identify children still being left behind, address persistent bottlenecks, including shortages of trained social workers and weak referral systems, and prioritise scalable solutions that will shape UNICEF’s 2028-2032 Country Programme.

“The measure of our success will not be the number of plans we produce or meetings we hold. It will be whether a child at risk is identified before harm occurs; whether every child is counted at birth; whether a girl can remain in school and choose her future; and whether families and communities have the support they need to protect their children,” she said.