Adequate data will help address girl-child constraints — UNICEF
NAN-H-79
Data
By Kate Obande
Abuja, Oct. 11, 2016 (NAN) Ms Teija Vallandingham, UNICEF Girls Education Programme (GEP3) Manager, said on Tuesday that adequate data would help the country overcome the limitations and abuse a girl-child faces.
Vallandingham made the assertion at an event on Tuesday in Abuja to mark the 2016 International Day of the Girl-Child with the theme “Girls Progress equals Goals Progress: A Global Girl Data Movement’’.
The event was organised by UNICEF in collaboration with Civil Society Action Coalition on Education for All (CSACEFA) and the National Centre for Women Development, to promote the right of girls.
“Pulling data together on what constitutes key constraints that girls face begins the process of working to support them to overcome the issues.
“Quantifying the challenges girls face is the first critical step towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goals on gender equality and breaking barriers that confront the world’s 1.1 billion girls.
“The burden of unpaid household work begins in early childhood for girls and intensifies as they reach adolescence; girls spend 160 million more hours than boys doing household chores everyday globally,’’ she said.
The UNICEF programme manager said that the uneven distribution of unpaid household chores socialises girls and their societies to believe that a girl’s primary role is at home.
According to her, this belief reinforces gender stereotype and perpetuates girls and women’s economic dependence.
Vallandingham said that time spent on chores limited a girl’s time to play and socialise.
The manager noted that 32.4 per cent of girls as against 29.4 per cent of boys are out of school while 60 per cent of children of the poor are also not in school as against five per cent of the children of the wealthy.
She attributed these lapses to financial constraints, lower status accorded to girls in the society, low parental literacy level and child labour.
Also in her address, Chioma Osuji, the Policy Advisor of CSACEFA, said that the SDGs could not be achieved without taking into consideration the empowerment of the girl-child.
She added that 60 per cent of the Nigerian population comprised girl-child.
“We cannot empower girls without education as it is the only key we can use to bridge the barrier between the poor and the rich and be sure we have sustainable development in the country.
“Nigeria has more girls out of school than any other country.
“Thirty-two per cent of 15 to 23-year-old girls in the country are illiterate compared to 22 per cent of boys within the same age,’’ Osuji said.
She advised the government to expand the nine years free education policy to 12 years.
also speaking, Comrade Felicia Chukwura, the Chairperson, Nigerian Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) said that the girl-child must be empowered to enable her to be good citizens.
She added that if the girl-child was duly empowered, she would be a good mother and leader in the society.
“If you educate a woman you educate a nation,’’ she added. (NAN)
KTE/AOS/NKO
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Edited by Bayo Sekoni/Nkechi Okoronkwo
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