Education, only route to girl child’s liberation

Today is the International Day of the Girl Child. A day earmarked by the United Nations for leaders across the globe to recognise the imperativeness of empowering and investing in the girl child. As Nigeria joins other nations to mark this year’s edition, stakeholders who appraised the impact of the celebration five years on avowed that until the country widens access to girl child education, it might continue to witness a delay in developmental and sustainable goals. UJUNWA ATUEYI writes.

Last week, a new gender review released by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) Global Education Monitoring Report at an event in Paris, ahead of the 2016 International Day of The Girl Child (IDGC), upheld that education remains vital to women empowerment and attainment of gender equality.

The summary of the review showed that education can empower women to become leaders as they acquire literacy, confidence and communication skills. It can also give them a space to learn and practise leadership; as well as gain credibility and influence among leaders and decision-makers.

It also highlighted that educating girls and women would restrain the population growth, which is putting great strains on the planet. What the report intended to achieve as captured by UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova, in the report was to vigorously enlighten world leaders on the need to take issues relating to girl child and women more seriously.
This was part of the reason the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 2012 declared every October 11, as the International Day of the Girl Child. The overall aim is to among others create and support more programmes and opportunities for girls and increase awareness of gender inequality faced by girls worldwide.

Other objectives as encapsulated by the UN include providing right to education/access to education, nutrition, legal rights, medical care, and protection from discrimination. Violence against women and child marriage are also part of it.

It is expected that the yearly observance will help create programmes and policies that would eradicate poverty, increase participation of girls in decisions that affect them and end the violence and discrimination among them.

The theme for this year’s celebration is “Girls Progress = Goals Progress: A Global Girl Data Movement.” It is hoped that countries will increase investment in collecting and analysing girl-focused, girl-relevant and sex-disaggregated data, according to information on the United Nations Women website.

However, some stakeholders who spoke to The Guardian on this year’s celebration have frowned on the narratives surrounding the abducted Chibok girls, most especially government’s inability to rescue the girls over two years after their abduction. This they claimed is a deficiency to this year’s celebration, as the leaders are yet to show great commitment to the wellbeing of the girl child.

In fact, they were cynical about government’s efforts to rescue the girls. They also alleged that Nigerian government still does not understand the import of neglecting the girl child.

On the night of April 14, 2014, 276 female students were kidnapped from the Government Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria. Till date the country is yet to rescue the girls except the few that were reported to have escaped from their abductors.

The latest report on the Chibok girls was a foiled swap deal, which “revealed that the leadership of Boko Haram demanded five billion Euros (about N1.7 trillion) as a ransom for the release of the abducted girls.”

One person that is not happy that the country is witnessing another celebration of the “Day of the Girl Child,” with the whereabouts of the Chibok girls still unknown, is the Human Rights activist and President, Women Arise for Change Initiative, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin.

She said though government has shown some high level of commitment to dismantling the terrorists group, its inability to rescue the girls till date is a shortcoming.