The girl-child has continued to be at the receiving end when it comes to discrimination in society. This unfortunate development does not only prevent them from attaining their full potential in life, but remains a setback to the enthronement of an egalitarian world whereby human beings are allowed to be at their best. T
his issue came under spotlight while reflecting on this year’s International Day of the Girl-Child, themed “Digital Generation: Our Generation”. The discussants were the Director, Budding Leaders Empowerment Initiative, Prof. Iyabo Kehinde; General Secretary, Child Protection Network, Mrs. Oviutu Adeleke; and a legal practitioner, Mr. Clement Obasanya; while Miss. Chienye Egwuonwu anchored the radio programme on FUNAAB Radio 89.5FM.
According to Prof. Kehinde, there is a slogan that says, empower the girls and they would grow up to be empowered women. The adolescence age is a very vulnerable age and it is a unique stage in the human development and these are stages where the girl-child grows up to become an adolescent with several challenges.
People try to sideline them and then sometimes, even push them away and prefer to train, or add value to the boy-child. A girl-child is a female, who is prone to several vulnerability, which the other sex is not faced with, adding that we need to acknowledge the importance of girls, the power they possess, their potentials and why they should be encouraged. The Professor suggested that there is the need to find ways of creating awareness by carrying the crusade beyond the urban areas and taking them to the rural areas by letting them know they have a right and no one can pressurise them into going into what they do not want to.
She agrees that the humiliation meted out to the girl-child may not be completely eradicated, urging that the digital age should also carry along the girl-child; they should not go ahead without the girl-child. The social media have both positive and negative sides called double edge-sword. No girl should stay at home, no girl-child should stay indoors, be lamenting and crying for when they can make their voices heard through social media.
There is an app that focuses on girl-child molestation in which the user can remain anonymous while the case can be taken up. There are many organisations pumping in a lot of resources to encourage the girls, especially in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), she stated further. For Mrs. Adeleke, the girl-child plays multiple roles for when we are looking at the African culture, we realise that there are a lot of things imposed on a girl-child when compared with the boy-child simply because that is the way our cultures put it.
We are agitating that if truly a girl-child is educated, the family is safe because such a child would see herself as someone that ought to keep the family together and the girl would look at herself and the issue of inequality would not be there again. At times, girls make some sacrifice for boys in the family, but the boys do not see it that way, they see it as their right. That is why there is need for awareness such that the girls should see themselves as being equal to their peers all over the world and the parents too should not look down on their children.
They should give both the boy and the girl equal chance in the house. Girls should have confidence in themselves and they should be able to stand wherever they find themselves and also take their education seriously. The government should make life easy for the citizenry by making provisions that would discourage massive migration to the urban areas. Our mindset has to be changed to accord more respect to the girl-child, Mrs. Adeleke said.
On his part, Mr. Obasanya also stressed the need to have a change of mindset that makes the girl-child to play the role of a second fiddle. Making reference to the constitution, he said there is no basis for discrimination or segregation, hence a girl-child is as important as the boy-child for they have the same rights. Everyone has the right to equal treatment and freedom from discrimination.
The Child Right’s Act also protects the girl-child from unnecessary discrimination. There is also an issue of conflict between laws. In some communities, you find that they tend to believe that women should not own property and this is against the constitution for they would tell that if a woman owns properties, it has consequences. How many people are aware of the existence of the Child Right’s Act? Hence, there is the need for more enlightenment for the people to know their rights under the law, stating that the judicial system has to ensure that the citizens can have faith by ensuring that justice is always done by seeking legal assistance. In conclusion, the discussants have left us with how to address the challenge from their submissions above on how the girl-child can adequately be protected through the collective efforts by all.
