International Day of the Girl: Clarion call on government to invest in girl-child

By Chidimma C. Okeke & Seun Adeuyi The world marked the 2022 International Day of the Girl (IDG) with the theme, ‘Our Time is Now—Our Rights, Our Future’, to focus attention on the need to address the challenges girls face and to promote girls’ empowerment and the fulfillment of their human rights. It is no […]

By Chidimma C. Okeke & Seun Adeuyi

The world marked the 2022 International Day of the Girl (IDG) with the theme, ‘Our Time is Now—Our Rights, Our Future’, to focus attention on the need to address the challenges girls face and to promote girls’ empowerment and the fulfillment of their human rights.

It is no longer news that at the global level, there has been increased attention on issues that affect girls, especially their education, human rights, wellbeing, health and others among governments, policymakers and the public.

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This is in addition to creating more opportunities for girls’ voices to be heard on the global stage.

The girl child, over the years, has been subjected to unprecedented challenges of rape, hawking, early marriage, out of school, domestic violence, amongst others, especially in developing countries.

The United Nations said inspecting all the challenges faced by girls, investments in girls’ rights remain limited and girls continue to confront a myriad of challenges to fulfilling their potential; made worse by concurrent crises of climate change, COVID-19 and humanitarian conflicts.

“Girls around the world continue to face unprecedented challenges to their education, their physical and mental wellness, and the protections needed for a life without violence,” the UN said.

The report said: “With adversity, however, comes resourcefulness, creativity, tenacity, and resilience. The world’s 600 million adolescent girls have shown time and time again that given the skills and the opportunities, they can be the change makers driving progress in their communities, building back stronger for all, including women, boys and men.

“Girls are ready for a decade of acceleration forward. It is time for us all to stand accountable – with and for girls – and to invest in a future that believes in their agency, leadership and potential.”

Speaking on the Day, an SS3 student in Abuja, Blessing Madu, told Daily Trust that it was meant to celebrate the importance of girl child and to make the government understand why it is important to take care of the needs of the girl child.

“We believe that when a girl is educated and given the right platform, she will be able to change her world and the world around her and that is why we are asking the Nigerian government to invest in girl child education, especially in the area of technical and digital literacy,” she said.

Blessing, 16, said digital literacy is what is important in the world today as it will help to improve students’ writing, reading and speaking skills.

“Through the internet, we can learn, connect with other girls around the world, share ideas and grow our talents, have fun and discover new things,” she said.

Blessing said her school always celebrated the day with activities like drama, debate, and other entertainment.

For the proprietor of Micray Progressive School, Lokoja, Michael Sule, girl child education is the most important, especially the digital literacy.

He said in Nigeria, access to education has remained a challenge to many girls whose parents cannot afford to pay their fees and many others who, for no fault of theirs, cannot access the learning environment due to insecurity ravaging parts of the country.

“The digital education has remained a major challenge for girls, and the gap between men and women in tech is wide. So it is important we lend our voices to that of the global community to call on the government to invest in the education of the girl child, especially in digital technology,” he said.

Speaking at an event in Abuja to mark the National Female Filmmakers Congress, the International Day of the Girl Child and the International Mental Health Day organised by the French Embassy in partnership with Girls Voices Initiative, the French Ambassador to Nigeria, Emmanuelle Blatmann, said the IDG is to remind the world of the importance of girls’ rights and to teach girls that they have the right to decide for themselves.

Blatmann, represented by the Programme’s Camille Oren, said the Girl Nation Programme is essential as it has empowered over 500 women with technical filmmaking skills and supported them to produce impactful films around girls’ and women’s rights issues through film screenings, advocacy engagements and the Women’s International Film Festival Nigeria.

He said the French Embassy has been proud to support GV since 2019, in promoting girls’ and women’s rights, stressing that indeed, gender equality is a priority of the French government, which spearheads this commitment through its feminist foreign policy.

“I sincerely hope that with this increased knowledge in filmmaking, you now feel empowered to champion advocacy for your rights and use films to share your stories and inspire other girls and women, using films to amplify their voices,” he said.

Meanwhile, part of the programme is a short drama depicting the challenges women face, such as rape and abuse, as well as showcasing women’s professionalism in filmmaking.

In an interview, the founder and creative director of Girls Voices Initiatives, Carolyn Seaman, said they usually celebrate the day with a girl summit as the core of their work is engaging with adolescent girls and young women.

She also said the World Mental Health Day was Monday, October 10, and the film talked about giving young women space to live their lives and make their choices and take responsibility for their choices.

“Those are some of the things we are pushing around the International Day of the Girl and this year, more so that we are talking about the digital generation, our generation.

 “It is really giving that space to young girls and women to believe that they can go on to do anything they want to do, and more so in a digital world where we are today, more opportunities are being unlocked in the technology space that we need to push our girls to take advantage of, so it empowers them to have a better life,” Seaman said.

She, however, said, “I hope that in some way, as we continue to mark a day like the International Day of the Girl, we can mobilise enough action from our government in terms of deliberate investment in the issues of adolescent girls so that our girls are better empowered. Empowered girls build an empowered nation.”

While noting that the investment in girls is still poor in Nigeria and rightly so because our government believes that there are so many other issues to focus on than just addressing that of girls, she said even with a lot of development funds coming in through aid, the challenge for a country like Nigeria is its massive population.

“So, for example, one of the statistics we have been working within Nigeria says we have about 20 million adolescent girls. That’s more than the population of some countries. These are girls who are victims, who are vulnerable to issues like child marriage that produce more children. These are people who are central to issues like health care because they go through puberty and all that,” she said.

“We keep signing laws and global instruments that we are not domesticating and making sure that they are implemented to improve the lives of girls and so we have a serious issue in terms of closing that gap and building the capacity of girls to actually grow to be the women who are empowered to sustain a nation and that’s a real issue,” she further said.

Speaking to journalists, Oren said empowering women is part of their feminism diplomacy to amplify the voices of women.

She said they co-finance the projects and support them by being part of the event, adding, “The total amount to finance the project is £100,000 and we provide about £69,000.”

On sustainability plans, she said they linked them to other firms that could ensure that they continued with what they do.

Meanwhile, the UN has said from now to next year, there would be a collective call for greater attention, investment and action on supporting the leadership of adolescent girls at the forefront of change efforts, including hearing their voices, responding to their asks, and nurturing spaces for their inclusion in decision-making, as well as increasing resources for and investments in adolescent girls.