All critical stakeholders must do more to empower the girl-child
As we join the rest of the world to celebrate the 2023 International Day of the Girl-Child, authorities in Nigeria must reflect on the travails of our young population, made more poignant by the recent abduction of female students in some northern universities. Girls have the right to a safe, educated, and healthy life, not only during their formative years, but also as they mature into women, according to the Nigerian Girl Guilds Association. "If effectively supported during the adolescent years," it stated, "girls have the potential to change the world - both as the empowered girls of today and as tomorrow's workers, mothers, entrepreneurs, mentors, household heads, and political leaders."
The fear arising from wanton attacks are bound to discourage parents from allowing their female children to go to school. Meanwhile, the benefits of keeping the girl-child in school are enormous. An educated woman is likely to ensure some basic level of education for her children, leading to a reduction in national illiteracy rates, and poverty levels in the long term. But the challenges go beyond attacks on schools. With about 70 per cent of families living below the poverty line, it is no surprise that the girl- child is usually the one sent into the streets to hawk, or to go and work as house help for more fortunate families.
A former Nigerian Ambassador to Mali once lamented that the problem of human trafficking had grown in magnitude and sophistication to the extent that several Nigerians in his country of posting were thriving on it. And the targets were young girls between the ages of 10 and 15 who were being recruited from villages by some unscrupulous Nigerians who sell them into lives of misery. According to the diplomat, about 20 to 30 girls were at the time being trafficked to Mali daily, with the promise of securing for them good jobs only to turn them to prostitutes.
Earlier this year, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) Director General, Fatima Waziri-Azi, revealed that several rogue labour recruiters are trafficking Nigerian girls to Iraq for domestic servitude. "We're inundated with pleas for the rescue and repatriation from female victims trafficked to Iraq, especially to the cities of Baghdad and Basra where they're distributed to homes by their recruiters to a hard life of domestic servitude." Even though basic education is supposed to be free in the country and some states currently provide one meal a day for pupils, many of the parents also cannot afford to buy for their female wards other essentials which are not provided for under the Universal Basic Education (UBE) programme.
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The unsuitability of sanitary facilities, such as water and toilets also contribute to keep girls away from school in several communities within the country and understandably so. A girl-child, dealing with the challenges of attaining puberty, needs a safe place to maintain proper hygiene. Rather than have their monthly periods without such safe places, many girls would rather stay away from school; because to stay in school could mean bearing the embarrassment and taunts that come with having their clothes stained.
Overall, it is also important for critical stakeholders to reflect on the impediment placed in the way of the girl-child in our country. Repeated attacks on schools by insurgents have created fear in many vulnerable students and their parents, and is affecting the attitude to education. Yet, according to the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), when children are denied opportunity for education "not only are their lives shattered, but the future of the nation is also stolen." On a day such as this therefore, critical stakeholders must understand the imperative of empowering the girl-child.
