8 August 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We, the Nigeria Coalition on Youth, Peace and Security, a\ncoalition of over 50 youth-led and youth-focused peacebuilding organisations in\nNigeria, welcome the adoption of the United Nations Security Council Resolution\n2535 on July 14, 2020, as the third UN resolution on the Youth, Peace and\nSecurity agenda. This new resolution calls on all United Nations member states\nto ensure the protection of young people in civic spaces and recognises the\nagency of young people in contributing to peace and security while urging key\nstakeholders including the government, international organisations, civil\nsociety and private business actors to include youth in all relevant peace\nprocesses. We commend the United Nations for this bold declaration again in\nsupport of the work young people and youth-led peacebuilding organisations\ncarry out across the globe in the midst of varying challenging terrain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For us in Nigeria, we state unequivocally that there is no\nbetter time to push for the protection of young people than now. The COVID-19\npandemic has severely affected Nigerian youth leading to high levels of\ndeprivation, human rights violation and insecurity. The high unemployment rates\nin the country have ensured most young people adapt to menial jobs and\nsmall-scale businesses that depend on daily wages to earn their living.\nUnfortunately, the varying degrees of lockdown procedures and restrictions\nsince March 2020 have led to a loss of the livelihoods of millions of youth\nwith very little palliatives or succour provided by the relevant policy-makers.\nGender-based violence has increased dramatically with young girls and women\nbeing abused by pedophiles and sexual predators without adequate deterrence\nfrom the justice system. Hard-working young people continue to be wrongly\nprofiled by security agencies as fraudsters with their fundamental human rights\ntrampled upon in arbitrary detentions, sexual harassment and intimidation.\nMeanwhile, young people continue to be slaughtered as victims of the various\nconflicts across Nigeria including terrorism, kidnapping, banditry and\nherdsmen\/farmer crises. The continuous killing of young men and women in\nSouthern Kaduna is another example of the endemic nature of violence against\nyoung people in Nigerian society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With continuous commitment from the UN, African Union and\nother stakeholders on strengthening the role of youth in conflict prevention\nand peacebuilding, we, therefore, call on the Nigerian government at all\nlevels, private sector, civil society organisations, to concretely invest in\nyouth peacebuilding, create the right space for young people to manifest their\nwork and work towards the domestication of this new resolution and the existing\nUNSCR 2250 (2015) and UNSCR 2419 (2018) on youth, peace and security. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The following measures should be considered and put in\nplace: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a coalition of youth-led organisations working across\nvarious aspects of peacebuilding including youth in politics, gender\nempowerment, sustainable livelihoods, climate change and conflict prevention,\nwe offer our expertise to the Nigerian policymakers in order to ensure adequate\ndomestication of these vital global frameworks so as to improve the well-being\nof all youth in Nigeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once again we appreciate the penholders of this resolution,\nDominican Republic and France – who led the process, the UN Security Council,\nUN Envoy on Youth, civil society organizations especially the Global Coalition\non Youth, Peace and Security for their continuous support for youth\npeacebuilders across the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Signed on behalf of the Coalition:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rafiu Adeniran Lawal, South West, Nigeria 8 August 2020 We, the Nigeria Coalition on Youth, Peace and Security, a coalition of over 50 youth-led and youth-focused peacebuilding organisations in Nigeria, welcome…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,23,11,46,7],"class_list":["post-325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-as-in-media","tag-yps","tag-buildingblocksforpeace","tag-nigeria","tag-unscr2535","tag-youth4peace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbforpeace.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbforpeace.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbforpeace.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbforpeace.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbforpeace.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bbforpeace.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":328,"href":"https:\/\/bbforpeace.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325\/revisions\/328"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbforpeace.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbforpeace.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbforpeace.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbforpeace.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Joy Godwin, South South, Nigeria
Precious Ajunwa, South East, Nigeria
Kaltunmi Abdul Azeez, North West, Nigeria
Imrana Alhaji Buba, North East, Nigeria
Olasupo Abideen Olasupo, North Central, Nigeria<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"