AREAi Legal Mapping · Child protection law

Nigeria Child Rights Act Domestication Atlas

How the Child Rights Act 2003 became state law across 36 states and the FCT. For each state the atlas records its instrument, enactment window, confidence grade and evidence. You can replay two decades of domestication on the map.

Evidence cut-off 21 Oct 2026Federal Act Child's Rights Act 2003Basis Residual list · CFRN 1999 s.4(7), s.12

Domestication map

Hover a state for its status and click it to open the full dossier. Drag the scrubber to see which states had a child rights law at each milestone.

Snapshot

Instrument ledger

The register behind the map. Click a header to sort, or a row to open that state's dossier.

StateZoneStatusInstrumentEnactedConfidenceEvidence

Legislative tracker

Dated milestones behind each snapshot, each tied to its source.

Mapping architecture

How each record is built and graded, so the atlas holds up in front of funders, legislators and courts.

Status vocabulary

  • Child Rights Law: state law adopting the CRA under a child-rights title.
  • Child Protection Law: a differently titled domestication, common in the North-West and North-East, often with changes to fit Sharia and local norms.
  • Disputed: credible sources disagree on whether the instrument counts as domestication.
  • Federal law: the FCT, where the Act applies directly.

Conformity tests to apply

  • Child defined as under 18 (CRA s.277).
  • Marriage and betrothal of a child prohibited (CRA ss.21–23).
  • Ban on harmful practices: tattoos, scarification, FGM (CRA s.24).
  • Family court system established (CRA Part XIII).
  • State Child Rights Implementation Committee (CRA Part XXIII equivalent).

Confidence grading

  • High: dated primary or UN/government source naming the state.
  • Medium: enactment window inferred from two dated lists, or one credible report.
  • Low: sources conflict, or only secondary reporting exists.

Verification protocol

  • Obtain the gazetted law from each State Ministry of Justice.
  • Check House of Assembly votes and proceedings for passage dates.
  • Score the law against the five conformity tests.
  • Re-grade quarterly and log each change as a tracker event.

Record schema







  
Evidence register

  
Sources cited by ID. Where they disagree, the conflict stays visible in the record.