Announcement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:Communications Team

The New Generation Girls and Women Development Initiative (NIGAWD)

House 1, Covenant Extension, Ajebamidele, Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria

programs@nigawd.org | +234 (0) 813 979 0401

www.nigawd.org

ON CHILDREN’S DAY 2026, A CRY FOR THE INNOCENT: NIGAWD CONDEMNS ONGOING CHILD ABDUCTIONS, DEMANDS EMERGENCY ACTION FOR CHILDREN IN CAPTIVITY

ADO-EKITI, NIGERIA — May 27, 2026. As Nigeria marks Children’s Day 2026, a day meant to celebrate the joy, safety, and potential of the nation's youth, Today, our hearts are heavy. The New Generation Girls and Women Development Initiative (NIGAWD) issuing a solemn, urgent call to action regarding the innocent children, including infants and toddlers, currently languishing in kidnappers' dens across the Nigeria.

While many families celebrate in the safety of their homes, a dark cloud hangs over the nation. Behind the statistics of insecurity are real, breathing children. Today, NIGAWD is calling on Nigerians to look at an agonizing reality: toddlers who should be learning to walk are sleeping on bare earth; children are going weeks without the dignity of washing their bodies; and mothers are living through an unspeakable living nightmare.

Among those kidnapped is a young mother and schoolteacher, abducted alongside her tiny, one-and-a-half-year-old baby. A woman who dedicated her life to nurturing the minds of Nigeria's future now sits in the dirt of a forest canopy, entirely stripped of the ability to provide basic hygiene, warmth, or safety to her infant.

“We cannot sing songs of national progress, civic awareness, or future development while an eighteen-month-old baby is held hostage in the bush," said Abimbola Aladejare-Salako, Executive Director of NIGAWD. "This is no longer just a security failure; it is a profound crisis that is tearing at the very soul of our country. A nation that cannot guarantee that a child can sleep safely in their own bed is a nation in an existential emergency. True development cannot happen in an environment of terror and trauma."

As an organization deeply rooted in policy advocacy, youth development, and the protection of vulnerable groups, NIGAWD is calling on the Federal Government of Nigeria, state governors, and all relevant security agencies who have sworn an oath to serve this Nation and protect lives and properties to, among others:

• Deploy All Available Resources: Treat the rescue of abducted children not as a routine security operation, but as a top-priority national emergency requiring immediate, coordinated tactical intervention.
• Enforce Legal Protections for the Vulnerable: Actively utilize and strengthen existing legislative frameworks, including state-level Child Rights Laws and the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Law to ensure the state holds perpetrators of violence against women and children to the highest standards of accountability.
• Provide Transparent Updates: Families deserve to know that their government is fighting for them. We demand regular, transparent briefings on the concrete steps being taken to secure the release of these captives. Not a deefening silence.
• Establish Trauma Support: Implement immediate, long-term psychological and medical rehabilitation frameworks for rescued children, students, and their deeply traumatized families to combat the generational scars of captivity.

NIGAWD refuses to let the plight of these children become background noise in the daily news cycle. We call on civil society partners, media houses, religious organizations, and everyday citizens to use this Children’s Day not just for celebration, but for fierce, unyielding solidarity.

We will not stop speaking, demanding, and advocating until every empty bed is filled, and until that mother can finally hold her baby in the safety, peace, and comfort of her own home.

About NIGAWD: Established in 2012, The New Generation Girls and Women Development Initiative (NIGAWD) is a prominent, woman-led non-governmental and non-profit organization based in Southwest Nigeria. NIGAWD envisions a society where women and youth are intellectually, economically, politically, and socially empowered as positive change drivers. The organization actively works across key thematic areas including Gender-Based Violence (GBV) prevention, ending Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR), policy advocacy, and youth-led governance and peaceful election campaigns.