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The World Health Organization defines child abuse or child maltreatment as the physical, sexual, and/or physiological maltreatment or neglect of a child or children, especially by a parent or care giver. Child abuse may include any act or failure to act by a parent or a care giver that results in actual or potential harm to the child, and can occur in a child's home, or in the organization, schools or in the community the child interacts with. Although child abuse occurs in Nigeria, it has received little attention. This is probably due to the emphasis placed on the more prevalent child hood problems of malnutrition and infection. Child abuse can either be sexual or non-sexual abuse. Sexual abuse consists of abuses that can either be child marriage, molestation or female genital mutilation. While non sexual abuse includes child labor, kidnapping and neglect.
According to the united nations, it is estimated that they are 15 million working Nigerian children under the age of 14. These children have been exposed on the street and forced into long hours of dangerous situation that are not developmentally appropriate. Although this situation has been attributed to economic necessity, the risk of accident, violence, sexual exploitation have been reported. In recent times, there has been reports of abuse and kidnapping of school children in the school environment, the most popular one being the kidnapping of 276 Nigerian girls by the boko haram terrorist group where the girls where subjected to sexual abuse; forced labour; forced participations in military activity; physical and physiological abuse; and forced marriages although children who are sent to hawk and out off school children are the most affected.