The growing calls for gender equality and protection of the Rights of Girls is not meant as a slight on the boy Child or a move to place girls above boys.
Executive Director of the Haycey Initiative, Rhoda Robinson, disclosed this while speaking on the International Day of the Girl Child to TVC News.
Speaking on the TVC News Breakfast Show said the move is to ensure that the girl Child is not left behind.
Going Further, Ms Robinson, said any known untoward development or crisis affects the girl Child and Women more than men and Boys and the need to empower and protect them cannot be over emphasised.
According to her, the issue of discrimination against the girl child still exists everywhere in Nigeria but said this is less prevalent in the South than the Northern part of Nigeria.
On the issue of the boy child being left behind, she said it takes two to tango and that empowering the girl child without the Girl Child having the same opportunity makes them vulnerable because in the event of death of the Male head of the family, the Women or girls become vulnerable.
Read More Below…
As you said, from north to south, the challenges basically are the same, but the severity differs. And so when you’re looking at issues like education, access to health care, protection of rights, protection from gender based violence, harmful traditional practices, there’s various across regions, but they still exist as a home. And that’s what we are trying to protect girls from and provide for girls, giving them the opportunity and the platform to take advantage and to live to their full potential.
When you’re looking at the rights of girls that they need to protect, we’re looking at the rights to be free from discrimination, to be free from violence, to be free to access healthcare, free to access education, free to explore and develop and choose the life that they want for themselves. And these are things that are systemically prevented. Girls are systemically prevented from achieving and from receiving in our society today. And that’s why it’s very important that we continue advocacy and for the rights of girls and we continue creating platforms that give girls the opportunity to develop themselves in full.
As you know, every year Haycey has its annual activities that they do for the International Day of the Girl Child. And this year we looked at what girls really want when it comes to engaging with leaders and chart in the future that they want. And through our essay competition, which had over 365 girls from across the nation, teenage girls writing, you hear things like they want to be able to study a course that they see is fit for them and that there is no gender bias against girls, being able to study things like aeronautics, things like marine biology, things that are categorically assigned or seen as male dominated. So those are the kinds of things that girls are really looking forward to. Girls are looking at learning from role models who have gone through the same kind of thing, which we do not have right now.
Because generally over the years, society has limited how far women can go in terms of career, in terms of opportunities, and what they can actually look at. So when you look at the rights of girls, you are looking at it both at the now, what they are facing now, and what they are going to face in the future. Which is why gender equality, promoting gender equality is extremely important because it is not just for the now, it is also for the future and giving them the opportunity to have a say in that future.
Okay, so I just first want to start by saying that it is not a war between genders. Gender equality is not looking at putting girls before boys. Gender equality is looking at ensuring that the same rights that boys enjoy, they enjoy it as well. And they are not segregated or discriminated against because of their sex or their gender. So that is the foundation of what we are looking at. And when you say that, the issue is that when we are focusing too much on girls, the boys will be left behind.
When you are trying to achieve equality, you start with what is lower right now, globally, across the world. When you look at different gender indicators, gender indexes, women and girls are disproportionately affected by any situation whatsoever, be it crisis, war, be it economic downturn, be it poverty, be it health system, violence, whatever you are looking at, when you compare how it affects the boys and men to women and girls, women and girls are always more disproportionately affected.
Let me give you an example and they recently released gender snapshot, gender index snapshot. You find that where global you can receive. Yeah, I’m not really talking about global Nigeria. I’m giving you an instance now you find that there are 383,000,000 women and girls will be affected more by poverty when compared to 365,000,000 boys and men. You understand the difference. So we are not saying that boys are not affected.
That is not the discussion, that is not the argument. We are saying that they are basic human rights that are systemically prevented and denied women and girls. And before we can reach a situation or a society that is fully developed, both instances have to be equally balanced. But we are not looking for a society that puts the responsibility of care or provision on one gender. We are looking for a society that equally values the contribution of both the male and the female. And that is what we are lacking in today’s society, isn’t it? I’m saying that we have movements all over Nigeria. I’m not interested in the global picture, I’m interested in Nigeria. If you go outside today, go on the streets, it’s better.
In the south, in the northern part of the country, you have so many boys. I lived in the north before, so I experienced this because then they put something on their head and they go and hawk the boys are carried. So many of them do nothing because of the system, the feudal system that ignores them. They grow up, they become tools of politicians, they become Bandits, they become Boko Haram, they don’t go to school, they become used by politicians, they become used by Rich men in the society and it turned them to nothing.
This population we need to examine is as great as those girls that have been ignored. Definitely. So as I’m saying that there’s no justice in this. What we keep talking about, girlchild, girl, child, I understand it. But this same boy child, we own the home, we have five of those four or five of them or even ten of them. It depends on how many wives he has before he dies. We have them as wives, I have to take care of them.
Now, this boy child has not been taken care of as a child. You didn’t let him go to school, you didn’t let him go to get a good education, you didn’t give him the good moral atmosphere to grow up in in our heads, not only a husband, but a big family. And you expect that this one will understand the value of a woman. That’s the problem. That’s why I really appreciate what the Lagos state First Lady is doing is Nollywood is the one who has said that we appreciate what’s going on with women, with the girl child. I’m not playing down the role of the girl child, but I’m saying that this boy child that you neglect is going to be the one that will give birth to other girls who grew up not understanding the value of girls, but will not have to send his own boy to school and forget his girl. Okay, so I’ll take it one at a time. Yeah. Now, you had said that in society, like in the north, a lot of boys are in the streets and they are prone to being picked up by politicians and Terrorists.
Terrorism. Yes. Now, when you look at it in that instance, as a government, they are supposed to be structures, policies in place to prevent that from happening. Let me give you an instance of when the school is built. And let’s say the problem is that there were not enough schools. That is why we had that issue of children not having anywhere to go that they were on the streets. When a school is built because there has not been a genderless to actually look at the difference between the realities of boys and girls. More times than not, the boys get sent to school and the women and girls get left at home. Now, we do not need to argue if this is true or not. This is what has been happening even currently. This is what happens in the north as well. They do not go to school.
They are not sent to school because at the end of the day, the same thought you have is that it is the boys that we end up taking care of the family. So they are the ones that we need to train. However, you are leaving undertrained, underexposed girls and women at home who cannot fight for themselves, who do not have a voice for themselves, who cannot provide for themselves. Now, if you look at an instance where, let’s say there has been a death of the male member or the head of the household and the family at that point when that one person who is the male that is leading a family is no longer there, those women and girls who are part of that family are now extremely vulnerable. And that is what we are trying to prevent.
That even if you have empowered boy child, even if you have empowered man, you should be able to realize that it takes two to actually achieve equality. You cannot put all focus on one and saying that this is your sole responsibility. You are in charge of taking care of girls and they are supposed to sit as women, do nothing and not be responsible for themselves. No, women deserve and have the right to be responsible for themselves to be able to choose what they want to do and achieve what they want to achieve. But we do not find that in today’s society because everything is put on the boy being the head of it. And we are not arguing that part. We are not arguing that part. What we are saying is that the women and girls deserve that equal opportunity as well. To be able to say, I want to go to school, to be able to say that I want to live a better life.
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