Today is the International Day of the Girl-Child when their challenges are addressed to promote their empowerment and the fulfilment of their human rights, writes CHINAKA OKORO
Innocent Okeke’s wife has just been delivered of her fifth child. Ordinarily, she should be a happy woman who God has blessed with a new baby. But when she inquired of the child’s gender, she was told that she gave birth to a beautiful girl. Mrs Nkeiruka Okeke sighed and began to cry to the surprise of those who accompanied her to the hospital when the pangs of labour set in.
She didn’t cry because the gender of the baby was a girl. She cried when she remembered the threat of her husband that she should return to her father’s house if she gave birth to a baby girl.
Mrs Okeke, who is Mr Okeke’s third wife, had four girls previously. His two previous wives; Mgbeke and Uremma, had six and four girls for him. But his desire to have a male child necessitated his marrying Nkeiruka so that she would bear at least a male child for him so that his family’s name would continue to exist.
He had thought that should Nkeiruka bear a male child, he would name him Obiechina or Ahamefuna (may my name not be lost). Now, he has 14 children; all-female, Okeke believed that his world is ruined. Not only that, no one will propagate his name after he had joined his ancestors.
He was so pained because, in his society, great importance is attached to male children than the female ones. With his state of mind and his initial reaction and regrets, his 14th female child has tacitly been rejected.
Nkeiruka’s “odd” female child represents millions of other girls whose gender is the only “offence” against societal constructs and a demonstration of some of the challenges that girls all over the world face.
Some ethnic groups in Nigeria place so much emphasis on male children and if a married woman falls to give birth to a son, it is seen as her fault. But why is so much emphasis placed on male children?
The phenomenon of male child preference is not new. It has existed for centuries. Females have suffered degradation and dehumanisation through the ages.
The existing socio-cultural practices in society cause the prevalence of male child preference among couples.
In many societies, including Nigeria, the birth of a baby boy is received with great joy; the rites are more elaborate and the mother receives huge compliments for giving birth to a male child. The dad enjoys great pride and respect with the assurance of continuity of the family line.
The birth of a girl, on the other hand, is less ceremonial with the reduced value attributed to the mother and the child. The reception ritual is minimal and less colourful.
Experts aver that much of the experiences which the girl child has to contend with are not cheery enough to buoy up the hopes and spirits of the supposed mothers of tomorrow. They also maintain that “the girl child needs peace, love, care, healthy and serene environment and reassured commitment to her survival to exist. They also need adequate health care, good nutrition and protection from killer diseases for appropriate physical and mental growth.”
But these days, what an average girl child experiences is beyond mere rejection in preference to the male child. The girl children also experience a lack of education and early marriage, among other saddening difficulties.
Some of the factors that contribute to the problem of the girl child include poor family background, religious isolation, early marriage and pregnancy, gender-driven violence, cultural discrimination and attitudes against women’s status and role.
Over and above these, the girl child has been seen as a veritable tool for destruction. The insurgency in the Northeast geo-political zone and other parts of the country is said to have been fuelled by teenage girls who have been recruited by the insurgents.
They have become handy for dirty jobs such as prostitution and drug peddling by interest groups who use them to perfect their acts after they had been talked into the benefits of such actions.
The girl children have become objects of sexual abuse. We almost always read or hear about sexual harassment in the universities where sex determines the level of marks the girl in the university system would get. We also read about teachers sexually molesting girls in secondary schools; even as infants are sexually abused by adults. Some say they have also become victims of money rituals. How true this is is yet to be verified.
They have been referred to as the weaker sex to justify societal discrimination and oppression against them. They must remain, silent hewers of wood and drawers of water, bearers of children, and toilers of arduous labour. They can be seen but not to be heard in the private and public spaces of decision making. The girl-child by the natural status ascribed to her by male-defined norms of social conduct and behaviour remains a property to be owned.
Consequently, her rights are circumscribed by tradition, custom and the intransigence of the male patriarchy.
“The girl child is discriminated against in terms of education and given out to marriage early thereby denying the girl child the required competencies for community development. The resultant effect of such discrimination is poverty and the only key to ending poverty among womenfolk as a whole is the education of the girl child,” says a commentator on women empowerment.
It is in the realisation of these incapacitating lot of the girl child that impelled the United Nations (UN) to proclaim October 11 each year as the International Day of the Girl Child. The proclamation became effective in 2012.
The declaration was aimed at promoting girls’ empowerment and fulfilment of their human rights while also highlighting the challenges that girls all over the world face.
The theme of this year’s celebration is “Girl Force: Unscripted and Unstoppable”. The theme seeks to celebrate achievements by girls since the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (what some feminists have termed affirmative action).
It also aims at promoting the girls’ position in society and to make their living better.
Sequel to this declaration to sensitise the world to the problems the girl child faces, some 30,000 women and men from nearly 200 countries arrived in Beijing, China for the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, determined to recognise the rights of women and girls as human rights.
Mary Wollstonecraft began this movement on women’s rights with the publication of her first feministic book entitled A Vindication for the Rights of Women in 1792 which was a sequel to a book A Vindication for the Rights of Men published in 1790.
At present, these movements have expanded. They are being organised by and for adolescent girls, and tackling issues such as child marriage, education inequality, gender-based violence, climate change, self-esteem, and girls’ rights to enter places of worship or public spaces during menstruation. Girls are proving they are unscripted and unstoppable.
The conference culminated in the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action: the most comprehensive policy agenda for the empowerment of women and girls.
In subsequent years, women have continued to propagate the agenda, leading global movements on issues ranging from sexual and reproductive health rights to equal pay. More girls these days are attending and completing school, fewer are getting married or becoming mothers while still children and more are gaining the skills they need to excel in the future world of work.
One of the most important tools available to empower women within the family and society is education as it contains a lot of benefits.
Okorie Mercy of the Department of Computer Science, Institute of Management and Technology (IMT) Enugu has stressed that “girl child education involves equipping girls who later grow up to women with the knowledge, abilities and mental powers with which they will be useful to themselves, the family and the society.
“Women education helps women take advantage of opportunities that could benefit them and their families, preparing women for the labour force and helping them understand their legal as well as their reproductive rights. Basic education provides girls and women with an understanding of basic health, nutrition and family planning, giving their choices and the power to decide over their own lives and bodies.
“Girl-child education is the process through which the girl-child is made functional members of her society. It is a process through which the girl child acquires knowledge and realises her potential and uses them for self-actualisation, to be useful to her and others. It is a means of preserving, transmitting and improving the culture of the society.”
Education of the girl child has been shown to contribute immensely to the development of the family, the societies and the nation. Girl child education contributes to the various aspects of their lives such as increased productivity, family health and nutrition, reduced fertility rates and related child mortality rates. Girl child education empowers the girl child to become self -sufficient adult capable of taking the decision and controlling her life.
It is believed that the burden of nation-building rests much on women. This is where women education plays pivotal roles.
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