In Niger, girl-child faces abuse, discrimination

The crowd at the old ERCC/Book Review Centre Minna, venue of this year’s International Day of the Girl-Child was thin. The assembly was also devoid of the crème de la crème of the state, but the message of the one day event was very clear. 

 

The event was also significant because those who are central to its success were not just well represented but encouraged to voice out the discrimination and the many abuses they endure overtime as girls in a society, which relegated them to the sidelines of the many opportunities in life. With the grim realities the girl-child faces, a United Nations resolution in 2011 designated 11 October as the International Day of the Girl Child (IDGC), a day set aside to promote the rights of girls and addressing the unique challenges they face. 

 

In Niger state these challenges are many and diverse. She is denied access to education; does all the domestic chores; sexually abused; subjected to all forms of violence, even as cultural and religious practices conspire to relegate her more, among others. 

At this year’s forum which took place on October 15 in the state with the theme: “Girls’ progress: A Global data call, stakeholders such as UNICEF, High Level Girl-child Education Advocates (HILWA) and Niger State Universal Basic Education Board (NSUBEB) provided the girls the platform to talk for themselves. The denial of the girl-child access to education and the many factors responsible for the anomaly, were the main issue of debate.  

As the debate intensifies in the small hall, in motor parks, major streets, markets, construction sites among others across Minna, the state capital, girls of school age hawk different commodities for patronage. The hawkers are of three categories-there are those who have never been enrolled in school. Our reporter observed that many within this group were hired from their parents by traders at an agreed sum, which is usually paid at the end of every month depending on the understanding. 

 

Our investigation shows that they are of different gender and most of them are brought into the state capital from the villages. One of such is Hadiza Makun, 13, who was brought to Minna from a village in Bida Local Government Area with the consent of her parents, on  a contractual agreement which she has no knowledge of. She was seen around Rafin Yashi area in Bosso Local Government Area of Niger State, selling Banana to traders. She said her parents will use the proceeds to acquire materials she will take along to her matrimonial home, when she eventually gets married.  

Findings  also show that some of the children especially girls are also brought into the city from the villages mostly by women, who deployed them as maids to wealthy clients, who get their returns based on a percentage negotiated between them and the parents of the wards. 

Apart from those brought into town from the villages, there are a  growing number of children whose parents ,although based in the state capital and close to schools, were not keen on sending their wards to acquire even the basic education. Malam Abubakar Abdullahi of Barikin Saleh area of Minna ,says he  would not waste his time sending his daughters to schools. He is one of the fathers who are of the opinion in 21st century Nigeria that such efforts will see the girl end up in the kitchen. “To be honest with you, I send my daughter to hawk vegetables so that she will start learning how to trade and develop the culture of saving, so that when she grows up she will not encounter any difficulty in life.

“It is not compulsory for a girl to acquire western education ,as most of them end up in kitchen and come to think of it, most of the girls who enrolled into western schools did not come out with good jobs,” he stressed. 

The likes of Malam Abdullahi abound in villages across the state. The story was told in a community in Mashegu local government area, where a father was threatened with arrest before he could allow his daughter to be enrolled in school. Our investigation also unearthed lads who are interested in western education but could not immediately do so due to factors beyond their control. Seven year old Yunusa Ismail is yet to enroll in primary school due to financial constraints occasioned by the death of his father, which left the burden of caring for his sick mother on his young shoulders. He has to hawk pure water to keep both himself and his mother going. “School, I would like to be educated in both Islamic and western ways, but I guess that is just a wish which may not come to pass,” he told Daily Trust. 

 

But unlike the instances above, there are children who attend afternoon classes, but use the morning hours to hawk goods in targeted locations before the school hours. They are also many more who are in school but compelled by their parents to hawk. Our reporter encountered a primary 5 pupil crying while hawking around Tudun Fulani Area of Bosso Local Government Area. She had lost part of the proceeds for the day’s business but her parents insisted she must make up for the amount lost. “My father said I must find the missing N140.00 or I will not return home, she explained in Hausa. Our reporter offered to pay the amount and escorted her home and a threat of court action if the girl is seen hawking again at school hour after a serious altercation with the father, settles the matter.

 

Like the situation above, Maryam Abdulkadir, a student in Day Secondary School Chanchaga, was also seen hawking vegetables around Abdul-Salam Abubakar Motor Park during the  school hour.  “My mother forced me to help out this morning as she needs money urgently for something,” she explained. She would have wanted to concentrate on her studies, but such interruptions dampened her resolve. There are also issues such as lack of textbooks, and  the distance she has to cover every morning while walking to school, also combining to freeze  her ambition.

 Challenges such as those Maryam is facing according to experts at this year’s event, forced many out of school like Hanatu, Murjanatu and Aisha, who have dropped at some point from secondary schools. It is such cases and many other challenges that tended to frustrate the enrolment and retention ,as well as transition of many girls in schools that led to the coming  together of like-minds to form HILWA in the state, Daily Trust learnt. The group is made up of women who have excelled in their chosen career and are role models to others.

 

Its coordinator, Hajiya Hajara Adamu said HILWA, whose representatives cut across the northern states, is out to evolve a mechanism through which governments are encouraged to formulate policies and programmes that will effectively respond to the specific needs of the girl-child. “We are mostly concerned about basic issues of the girl-child like education, which is a fundamental human right, but it is being denied them,” she noted. 

Its approach to fighting the trend is through advocacy and service, which is paying off with a significant rise in the enrolment rate across the state. 

Aside HILWA’s initiative, Daily Trust learnt that the state government has also come up with different measures aimed at encouraging the education of the females in the state. One of such steps was the enrolment of 2,000 females into various Colleges of Education across the state, to acquire basic teaching techniques, before deploying them to primary schools as teachers. 

The students were said to have been selected from the three zones that make up the state ,and given scholarships  to obtain the  National Certificate of Education (NCE) in Colleges of Education. Most of the affected students have since graduated, and have been deployed appropriately to rural areas, where there are incidences of low enrolment of the girl-child in schools. 

 

There was also a collaborative effort between the state government and the UNICEF in bridging the education gap between boys and girls in the state, by providing stipends to indigent parents to take care of hidden costs, that will hinder them from sending their wards to school. Daily Trust learnt that about 4,000 pupils and students across 72 schools in the state, have so far benefited from the cash transfer initiative. This is aside the establishment of women day secondary schools across the three senatorial districts of the state, aimed at giving opportunity to those who may have dropped out midway so that they would actualize their dreams. 

But despite these many interventions, stakeholders, including the representatives of the girl-child, were unanimous that more needs  to be done in that direction. They averred that although the state signed into the child rights act early, implementation of the document was still a problem. 

Our reporter learnt that because of lack of implementation of the existing legislation, cases of abuse are on the rise. But the Child Rights  Agency, newly established to handle such cases, said it is equal to the task. Its director general, Barrister Maryam Kolo said it has handled 500 of such cases including rape, forced marriages among others since inception. 

As the stakeholders brainstorm on the way forward, one of the core challenges they may have to deal with is the apparent lack of adequate data on the subject matter, for effective planning of government policy and programmes in that direction. Beyond what UNICEF provides, the state agencies under which platform the delicate issue falls, lack the much needed fund to put the figure together, thereby frustrating the global data call that will lead to harnessing the specific needs of the girl-child.