It is a decade, or almost so, since the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 66/170 on December 19, 2011 to declare October 11 of every year as the International Day of the Girl Child. It was designed to recognise the rights of the girl child and the sundry challenges she has to cope with.
Remarkably, five years earlier, at the Beijing World Conference on Women in 1995, many countries had unanimously adopted what came to be known as the Beijing Declaration. Till date, the Beijing Declaration represents the most progressive and audacious blueprint ever formulated for the advancement of female rights, which now include both women and girls across the world.
By way of summary, the International Day of the Girl Child seeks to draw attention to the imperativeness of addressing the socio-economic and physical needs of girls as well as assisting them to cope with whatever challenges that confront them in life on a daily basis.
All teenage girls, going by the UN Resolution, should have the right to a safe, educated, and healthy life, not only during their adolescent years, which many believe are critical to their growth and formation, but also as they progress into adulthood and become mature women. It has been argued that if effectively supported during the adolescent years, girls can grow and achieve their potential in a world that is skewed against them due primarily to socio-cultural beliefs across the world.
Where and when they have been assisted and allowed to flourish and bloom, Nigerian girls have broken glass ceilings and even outperformed their male counterparts. They have risen to become renowned leaders and performers in politics, administration, enterprise, sport and in other endeavours hitherto thought to be exclusively for the male gender, including human rights advocacy.
However, the figures that popped up in the media last week about the girl child in Nigeria leave a sour taste in the mouth and call for a redoubling of actions in a bid to collectively assist the girl child realise her latent potential in life. The figures are not just scary, they are disgustingly distressing.
Last week, as the world marked the International Day of the Girl Child, Save the Children International, a human rights organisation, said that over 60 girls die daily from child marriage related complications.
“There is something inherently offensive in making a life-long decision for another without the least input from the affected. It stands as a classical example of what the late MKO Abiola of June 12, 1993 fame would describe as ‘shaving a man’s head in his absence’. It should not continue in the case of the Nigerian girl child”
Quoting a report, the organisation revealed that it had been estimated that 44 per cent of girls in Nigeria get married before their 18th birthday. This is distressing as it represents one of the highest rates of child marriage anywhere in the world.
The group in a statement by its Chief Executive, Inger Ashing, said, “Rates are not likely to decrease today as Nigerian girls are living in one of the most difficult times. As a result of armed conflict, humanitarian crisis, kidnapping, natural disaster, displacement, COVID-19 pandemic and economic recession, the lives of millions of girls are threatened to be pushed into the basket of deprivation, including reduced access to education, nutrition, lack of protection and lack of access to basic social services.
“Child marriage is one of the worst and deadliest forms of sexual and gender-based violence against girls. Every year, millions are forced into wedlock with men who are often much older, robbing them of an opportunity to keep learning, be children, and in many cases, to survive.
“Childbirth is the number one killer of teenage girls because their young bodies aren’t ready to bear children. The health risks of children having children cannot, and must not, be ignored.”
Also last week, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund revealed that not less than 1.3 million Nigerian adolescent girls dropped out of schools before completing their Junior Secondary Schools annually.
The deputy country representative of UNICEF, RushnanMurzata, while speaking in Abuja on the celebration of the 2021 International Day of the Girl Child, noted that “over 1.3 million Nigerian adolescent girls are estimated to drop out every year before reaching the last year of lower secondary education. Adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable to societal dynamics that limit their transition from primary to secondary.”
There is no doubting the fact that the Nigerian girl child has the innate gifts to excel in life if only she is assisted to find her way.
Many girls of yesterday have grown to be boardroom gurus, academic giants, super administrators, renowned entertainers and sporting buffs.
The Nigerian state needs to step up its action on many fronts to drive the goal of assisting the girl child scale natural, social and cultural hurdles that often work against and tend to limit her. Relevant legislation should be enacted to eradicate the practice of marrying off girls before the ‘age of consent’.
In other words, girls going into marriage should be allowed to grow to the age where they are fully aware of the duties and obligations their new status will impose on and demand of them before being pushed into it by external influence.
The idea of making them ‘learn in the process’ is an ambush of their rights and privileges. There is something inherently offensive in making a life-long decision for another without the least input from the affected. It stands as a classical example of what the late MKO Abiola of the June 12, 1993 fame would describe as “shaving a man’s head in his absence.”
It should not continue in the case of the Nigerian girl child.
There is no denying the fact that adolescent girls in Nigeria face many challenges that are economic, social and cultural in nature. These are challenges that the society must help the girl child to overcome with relative ease so as to free her latent potential to achieve the best in the world and thereby become useful, not only to herself, family, community, but also to the country and the world in general.
