The Legal Protection Gap: Evaluating Nigeria’s Domestic Laws and International Obligations for Immigrant Minors

3.1. International and regional legal framework

Nigeria is a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which defines a child as every human being below the age of eighteen years and obliges States Parties to respect and ensure the rights set forth in the Convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind. Article 2 prohibits discrimination based on the child’s or their parent’s or legal guardian’s status, including national or social origin, thereby encompassing migrant status.⁴ Article 3 requires that the best interests of the child be a primary consideration in all actions concerning children, which applies equally to immigration and asylum procedures.⁵ Article 22 mandates appropriate protection and humanitarian assistance for children seeking refugee status or considered refugees,⁶ while Article 37 restricts deprivation of liberty and prohibits cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.⁷

The Committee on the Rights of the Child has elaborated these obligations in its General Comment No 6 on the treatment of unaccompanied and separated children outside their country of origin and its joint General Comments with the Committee on Migrant Workers on the human rights of children in the context of international migration. These interpretative texts emphasize that migration status must never be a ground for discrimination and that children should in principle not be detained for reasons related solely to their or their parents’ migration status. They also require States to establish child-sensitive procedures, appoint guardians for unaccompanied minors, ensure access to education and health care, and respect the rights of children to express their views in all matters affecting them.⁸

At the regional level, Nigeria is bound by the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, which in some respects offers stronger protections than the CRC. The ACRWC explicitly addresses harmful social and cultural practices, child labour and early marriage, all of which intersect with migration and trafficking dynamics in West Africa. It obliges States to take measures to protect children from economic exploitation, trafficking, abduction and sale, and to ensure that children in conflict with the law are treated in a manner consistent with their dignity and worth.⁹ The African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child has underscored that all children within the territory of a State Party, including non-nationals and stateless children, fall within the Charter’s protective scope.¹⁰

Nigeria is also party to broader human-rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which guarantee rights to life, liberty, fair trial, education, health and an adequate standard of living.¹¹ These obligations apply to “all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction”, which clearly includes migrant children. The principle of non-refoulement, deriving from refugee law and reinforced by human-rights law, prohibits States from expelling or returning individuals, including minors, to territories where they would face a real risk of serious rights violations such as torture or inhuman or degrading treatment. This principle has direct implications for deportation practices, border management and returns involving children and families.¹²

Furthermore, Nigeria has ratified the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and its supplementary Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (the Palermo Protocol).¹³ The Palermo Protocol requires States to criminalise trafficking, protect and assist trafficking victims, and promote cooperation among States to prevent and combat trafficking. With respect to children, it emphasises that consent is irrelevant where any of the means of trafficking are used and that trafficked children must be treated primarily as victims in need of protection, not as offenders or illegal migrants.¹⁴ In the West African context, where trafficking and irregular migration are interwoven, these obligations are of particular relevance.

In addition to hard-law obligations, a range of soft-law guidelines and principles inform the protection of immigrant minors. These include UNHCR guidelines on child asylum claims, principles on the treatment of children associated with armed groups, and international guidelines on alternative care and juvenile justice. While not legally binding, such standards are frequently used by courts and policymakers as interpretative aids when assessing compliance with treaty obligations and designing national policies. Collectively, these instruments create a detailed matrix of norms requiring States like Nigeria to ensure that immigrant minors are afforded special protection and assistance as particularly vulnerable rights-holders.

3.2 Nigeria’s domestic legal and policy framework

3.2.1 Constitutional guarantees

The 1999 Constitution is the supreme law of Nigeria and sets out fundamental rights in Chapter IV, which are phrased in terms of “every person”, thereby encompassing citizens and non-citizens alike. These rights include the right to life, dignity of the human person, personal liberty, fair hearing and freedom from discrimination on grounds such as ethnic group, sex, religion or political opinion. In principle, immigrant minors should therefore benefit from these guarantees, particularly in relation to detention, due process and protection against cruel or degrading treatment.¹⁵ However, socio-economic rights such as rights to education, health and social welfare are contained in Chapter II as “Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy”, which are traditionally considered non-justiciable, limiting direct judicial enforcement. Recent case law and scholarship have begun to challenge this rigid dichotomy, but doctrinal uncertainty remains. ¹⁶

3.2.2 Child’s Rights Act and state domestication

The Child’s Rights Act 2003 is the central federal statute implementing the CRC and ACRWC in Nigeria. It defines a child as a person under eighteen years of age and affirms that in all actions concerning the child, the best interests of the child shall be the primary consideration. The Act guarantees a wide range of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including rights to survival and development, education, health, protection from abuse and exploitation, and protection from trafficking and forced labour. It prohibits discrimination against the child on the basis of belonging to a particular community or ethnic group or by reason of the child’s place of origin, which provides an opening for the argument that non-citizen children are equally protected.¹⁷

However, due to Nigeria’s federal system, the CRA initially applied directly only within the Federal Capital Territory and required domestication by individual state legislatures to have effect in the states. For many years, this led to a situation where only some states had child-rights laws aligned with the CRA, while others continued to rely on older legislation or customary practices.¹⁸ Human-rights advocates and the National Human Rights Commission repeatedly called for nationwide domestication, stressing that gaps left large numbers of children without comprehensive statutory protection. By the early 2020s, the federal government reported that 34 out of 36 states had domesticated the CRA, while more recent civil-society tracking initiatives and public statements suggest that all states have now adopted child-protection laws broadly based on the CRA.¹⁹

Even so, domestication has not been uniform in content or enforcement. Some state laws modify or omit certain provisions, particularly in sensitive areas such as age of marriage, inheritance or parental authority, often under pressure from customary or religious constituencies. Implementation remains uneven, with significant disparities in institutional capacity, resources and political will across states, producing a de facto geography of child protection. For immigrant minors, who may be concentrated in particular border or urban states, these variations have direct consequences for their ability to access rights and remedies.

3.2.3 Immigration, asylum and anti-trafficking legislation

Nigeria’s immigration regime is governed by legislation and subsidiary regulations that regulate entry, stay, detention and removal of non-nationals. While these instruments contain general provisions for the exercise of discretion and humanitarian considerations, they rarely articulate detailed child-specific safeguards comparable to those in the CRA or in international soft-law guidelines. In practice, immigration enforcement has sometimes prioritized border control and removal over child protection, with reports of minors being detained in immigration facilities and subjected to summary deportations. Nigeria’s asylum framework is less developed and has historically lacked robust procedures tailored to the specific needs of asylum-seeking children.²⁰

By contrast, anti-trafficking legislation has received substantial attention. The Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition) Enforcement and Administration Act establishes offences, penalties and victim-protection measures, and it creates the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP).²¹ NAPTIP operates shelters, provides psychosocial support, coordinates investigations and prosecutions, and engages in awareness-raising activities. Reports indicate that Nigeria has made some progress in prosecuting traffickers and identifying victims, including children, but that significant challenges remain in terms of victim identification, long-term reintegration and cross-border cooperation.²² The interplay between anti-trafficking efforts and broader migration management has, however, sometimes led to blurred lines between protection and enforcement, with trafficked children occasionally treated as offenders or irregular migrants.

3.2.4 Policy instruments and institutions

Nigeria has adopted various policy instruments touching on child protection, migration and human rights, including national child-protection policies, education and health strategies, and action plans on trafficking and gender-based violence. These policies acknowledge the vulnerability of children in general but seldom provide detailed operational guidance on the specific situation of immigrant minors. The National Human Rights Commission, established by statute, has a mandate to promote and protect human rights, receive complaints and conduct investigations, and it has highlighted child-rights violations as a major concern. The Commission’s dashboards show high numbers of complaints concerning violence, neglect and abuse, although data are not systematically disaggregated by nationality or migration status. ²³

Institutionally, responsibilities relevant to immigrant minors are spread across multiple bodies: the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development, state ministries and social welfare departments, the immigration service, the police, NAPTIP, the NHRC and, in some contexts, state human-rights bodies. Coordination mechanisms exist in the form of inter-agency committees and task forces, particularly in the anti-trafficking field, but their effectiveness varies. The absence of a comprehensive national framework specifically dedicated to children in the context of migration means that these institutions often operate in silos, with gaps in responsibility and accountability.²⁴

3.3 Alignment and divergence between domestic law and international obligations

3.3.1 Areas of alignment

At the level of normative design, Nigeria’s child-rights framework shows significant alignment with international obligations.²⁵ The CRA’s definition of a child, non-discrimination clause and best-interests principle reflect the core concepts of the CRC and ACRWC. Provisions protecting children from trafficking, exploitative labour and harmful practices echo obligations under the Palermo Protocol and African regional standards. Constitutional guarantees of dignity, liberty and fair hearing, when interpreted in line with international human-rights jurisprudence, provide a basis for challenging arbitrary detention and ill-treatment of children, including non-nationals.

Anti-trafficking legislation and institutional arrangements such as NAPTIP also track international expectations. Nigeria has criminalized trafficking broadly, created specialised investigative and prosecutorial units, and established shelters and assistance programmes for victims. International monitoring reports acknowledge these efforts, even as they call for stronger victim-centred approaches and improved protection for vulnerable children.

3.3.2 Areas of divergence and ambiguity

Despite these alignments, significant divergences and ambiguities remain, particularly in relation to immigrant minors. One key issue is the absence of explicit statutory language clarifying that child-rights protections apply regardless of nationality or migration status. While the CRA’s non-discrimination clause prohibits discrimination based on place of origin or community, many officials and service providers continue to treat non-citizen children as falling outside the core constituency of Nigerian child protection. This interpretative ambiguity can lead to exclusionary practices, such as refusing to enrol undocumented children in school or denying them access to social services.²⁶

Another area of divergence concerns the harmonization of immigration and child-protection law. International standards require that child-specific safeguard such as best-interests determinations, guardianship, child-sensitive procedures and prohibitions of immigration detention be integrated into migration and border-control regimes.²⁷ Nigerian immigration legislation does not yet systematically embed these safeguards, leaving wide discretion to officials and creating scope for practices that are incompatible with child-rights norms.²⁸ Reports of children being detained in immigration facilities, sometimes alongside unrelated adults, indicate a failure to operationalize international guidance.²⁹

The federal structure and uneven domestication of the CRA introduce further complexity. Although recent tracking suggests that all states now have child-protection laws, variations in content and implementation mean that the level of protection for immigrant minors can differ significantly depending on location.³⁰ In some states, customary or religious norms retain strong influence over family law, child marriage and guardianship, occasionally in tension with international standards.³¹ These divergences may be particularly pronounced in border and transit regions where immigrant minors are concentrated.

Procedural safeguards also lag behind international standards. While Nigerian law guarantees fair hearing and legal representation in general terms, it does not systematically require child-appropriate procedures for minors in immigration or criminal processes. There is no comprehensive statutory scheme mandating the appointment of guardians for unaccompanied minors, child-sensitive interviewing protocols, or multidisciplinary best-interests’ assessments before decisions on detention or removal.³² This stands in contrast to the detailed guidance provided by UN treaty bodies and regional mechanisms.

Documentation and statelessness form another critical gap. International law encourages States to ensure universal birth registration and to take measures to prevent statelessness, particularly for children born on their territory who might otherwise be stateless.³³ Nigeria has taken steps to improve birth registration, but practical barriers including distance to registration centres, fees in practice, lack of information and bureaucratic hurdles limit access for migrant families. Children of long-term migrants or of parents with irregular status may thus face difficulties in proving nationality or accessing services, creating a risk of de facto statelessness and long-term exclusion.

3.4 Protection gaps in practice

3.4.1 Access to justice and legal representation

Empirical reports indicate that immigrant minors face substantial obstacles in accessing justice and legal representation.³⁴ Children apprehended in immigration raids or intercepted near borders may be questioned without the presence of a lawyer, guardian or social worker, in contravention of child-rights standards.³⁵ Some are treated primarily as offenders’ irregular migrants or accomplices in smuggling or trafficking rather than as victims or vulnerable children entitled to protection.³⁶ The lack of specialised legal aid services for migrant children further undermines their ability to challenge unlawful detention, deportation or exploitation.

3.4.2 Detention and alternatives

Detention practices illustrate particularly stark tensions between immigration control and child protection.³⁷ International bodies consistently stress that immigration detention of children is never in their best interests and should be avoided, yet monitoring reports suggest that minors in Nigeria are sometimes detained for immigration-related reasons. Conditions in immigration detention facilities overcrowding, limited access to education or recreation, inadequate healthcare and risks of abuse fall short of the standards envisioned by the CRC and CRA.³⁸ Alternative care arrangements, such as community-based shelters, foster care or supervised release, exist in limited form through state services and NGOs but are not systematically deployed as substitutes for detention of immigrant minors.³⁹

3.4.3 Access to education, health and social services

Although Nigerian law recognises the right of every child to education and health, immigrant minors particularly those without documentation often face de facto exclusion from basic services.⁴⁰ Schools and health facilities may require identity documents, proof of residence or registration that migrant families cannot easily provide, leading to informal refusals of enrolment or treatment. Language barriers, fear of arrest, discriminatory attitudes and lack of information about entitlements compound these obstacles, especially for unaccompanied or separated children. Wider data on Nigerian children show high rates of abuse, child labour and school exclusion, suggesting that immigrant minors are operating within an already strained system.⁴¹

3.4.4 Identification of unaccompanied and separated minors

Effective protection of immigrant minors requires timely identification of unaccompanied and separated children and appropriate care arrangements. In practice, however, screening at borders, checkpoints and within communities often lacks child-sensitive procedures and clear referral pathways to child-protection services.⁴² Officials may not be trained to detect signs of trafficking or family separation, and age-assessment practices, where they exist, may be ad hoc and unreliable. As a result, some unaccompanied minors are misclassified as adults or remain hidden within broader migrant populations, missing out on guardianship and specialised support.

3.4.5 Trafficking, exploitation and abuse

Trafficking and exploitation represent some of the gravest risks facing immigrant minors in Nigeria. The US Trafficking in Persons Report and Nigerian human-rights reports document cases of children exploited in domestic servitude, street hawking, forced begging, agricultural labour and sexual exploitation.⁴³ Many such children are cross-border migrants or have moved within complex regional migration networks, blurring distinctions between trafficking, smuggling and voluntary movement. While NAPTIP and partner organisations report increased numbers of investigations and convictions, the overall scale of trafficking is believed to be much larger than the number of identified victims, indicating significant under-identification and under-reporting.⁴⁴

Illustrative vignettes from NGO reports describe, for example, a teenage girl from a neighbouring country brought to Nigeria for domestic work, denied schooling, subjected to physical and sexual abuse, and only referred to authorities after escaping.⁴⁵ Another case involves a boy apprehended during an immigration sweep near a border town, detained for several weeks without legal representation, and summarily removed without any assessment of his family situation or best interests.⁴⁶ These narratives underscore how gaps in law and practice expose immigrant minors to overlapping violations of rights to education, protection from abuse, liberty and family life.

3.5 Institutional and implementation challenges

Institutional fragmentation is a major obstacle to effective protection of immigrant minors. Responsibilities are spread across multiple agencies with overlapping mandates and sometimes conflicting priorities, including the immigration service, police, social welfare departments, NAPTIP, ministries of women affairs, education and health, and the NHRC. While inter-agency committees and task forces exist, they often lack clear authority, stable funding or consistent operational protocols, leading to coordination gaps and duplication of effort.⁴⁷ In practice, this means that no single institution assumes holistic responsibility for the well-being of immigrant minors throughout the migration cycle.

Resource and capacity constraints further undermine implementation. Social welfare services are under-funded and understaffed, with limited capacity to provide emergency care, foster placements, psychosocial support and long-term case management for vulnerable children.⁴⁸ Immigration and law-enforcement officials frequently lack specialised training on child rights, trauma-informed interviewing and identification of trafficking or exploitation. High turnover and weak supervision make it difficult to embed good practices, even where training has been provided.

Data and monitoring systems are also weak. Official statistics on children in Nigeria are improving but still suffer from gaps, and few datasets disaggregate information by nationality or migration status. Without reliable data on the number, location and profiles of immigrant minors, it is difficult to design targeted policies or evaluate the impact of existing interventions.⁴⁹ The NHRC’s complaint dashboards record thousands of human-rights complaints, many involving children, but do not yet systematically track cases involving migrant children as a distinct category.

Cultural and institutional attitudes towards migration can conflict with child-protection imperatives. Enforcement-oriented approaches emphasise border security, control of irregular migration and deterrence, sometimes at the expense of humanitarian and protection considerations.⁵⁰ In such environments, officials may view immigrant minors primarily through a security lens rather than as rights-holders, which can normalise practices such as detention, summary removal and failure to provide services. Transforming this culture requires not only legal reform and training but also leadership, incentives and accountability mechanisms that reward rights-respecting behaviour.

3.6 Role of non-state actors and international organisations

Non-state actors NGOs, faith-based organisations, community groups and professional associations play a central role in mitigating the protection gap for immigrant minors in Nigeria. They provide shelters, legal aid, psychosocial support, education programmes, vocational training and family-tracing services, often in contexts where state services are absent or overstretched.⁵¹ Civil-society organisations have been instrumental in advocating for the domestication of the CRA, monitoring state implementation and bringing individual cases of abuse or neglect to public and judicial attention.⁵²

International organisations, including IOM, UNICEF and UNHCR, support Nigerian authorities and civil society through technical assistance, capacity-building and direct programming. For instance, IOM and UNICEF have convened regional workshops and consultative fora focused on child protection for children from migrant backgrounds, highlighting the need for coordinated responses and strengthened national systems.⁵³ These agencies also assist with the development of policy frameworks, standard operating procedures and training curricula on child protection in the context of migration and displacement.

However, reliance on non-state actors and international partners raises questions of sustainability and accountability. Many NGO programmes depend on short-term donor funding, which can lead to abrupt service gaps when projects conclude or priorities shift. Coordination between NGOs and state agencies is often ad hoc and may be hindered by differing priorities, bureaucratic hurdles or mistrust, particularly around information-sharing in contexts of immigration enforcement. Ensuring that partnerships are genuinely child-centred requires clear protocols that prioritise the best interests of the child and safeguard the confidentiality and safety of immigrant minors.

3.7 Legal remedies and accountability mechanisms

Immigrant minors and those acting on their behalf theoretically have access to a range of legal remedies and accountability mechanisms. They may bring constitutional or statutory claims before Nigerian courts to challenge violations of fundamental rights or breaches of statutory duties, either directly or through guardians, NGOs or the NHRC. Strategic litigation has been used to advance child rights and challenge unlawful practices in areas such as education, detention and harmful practices, though cases explicitly focusing on immigrant minors remain rare.⁵⁴ Barriers include lack of awareness, costs, procedural complexity, fear of retaliation and difficulties in securing standing or gathering evidence where children are mobile or undocumented.

Administrative and quasi-judicial mechanisms provide additional avenues for redress. The NHRC receives complaints, conducts investigations and issues recommendations or decisions on human-rights violations, including those affecting children.⁵⁵ Internal complaints mechanisms within agencies such as the police, immigration service or NAPTIP can also be used to challenge misconduct, although their independence and effectiveness vary. In practice, however, these mechanisms are under-utilised by migrant children, who may lack information, face language barriers or fear negative consequences if they complain.

At the international and regional levels, Nigeria is subject to review by UN treaty bodies, the Universal Periodic Review process and African regional mechanisms. Civil-society organisations and national institutions submit shadow reports highlighting issues related to child protection, trafficking and migration, prompting recommendations that Nigeria reform its laws and practices.⁵⁶ While such recommendations are formally non-binding, they can exert normative and political pressure on the State and provide advocacy tools for domestic actors. The effectiveness of these mechanisms ultimately depends on the willingness of Nigerian authorities to implement recommendations and on sustained advocacy by domestic stakeholders.