Against the backdrop of what is described as ‘severe disadvantages, discrimination and exclusion’ of Nigerian women and girls, Girl Child Advocate, Habiba Abdullahi has urged the government to see women and girls as “a necessary tool for national development.”
Abdullahi who spoke recently in Abuja at the 3rd edition of the women and girls summit organised by the National Centre for Women Development (NCWD) in partnership with the Office of the Wife of the President and Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development resonated the mantra of the summit, which held under the theme ‘Putting The Girl-Child At The Heart Of National Development’.
The 23 year old graduate and author stated that, “As an average Fulani girl, I am not fighting the ideas or the core values of my upbringing. Rather, Gender sensitivity has always been a problem for every community. We need to start seeing women as partners and not as commodities that can be bought.”
Advocates from government agencies, NGOs, faith based organisations among others, lamented the lack of action in addressing issues affecting women and girls, including; inability to access land for Agriculture, poor response from security agents to domestic violence, high cost of sanitary pads for menstruation, and inflexible skeletal funding avenues for small/medium enterprise opportunities among other discriminatory matters reportedly faced.
In a ‘goodwill message’ PMA2020 expressed, “For many girls, puberty is the start of an accelerating journey of puberty and social inequality starting with early marriage, early childbearing, maternal ill health and mortality of their babies.”
According to Ene Ede, Gender advisor with Search For Common Ground, “Women and girls remain vulnerable to sexual violence, domestic violence and other vices. We need to pledge to support the girl-child, to empower them so they are not hungry. We must look for a creative way to fund initiatives while we wait for government opportunities to become fruitful.”
Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development on her part acknowledged the issues raised but stressed that effective policy could not be implemented without accurate data, noting that “mere speculations would not empower women and girls.”
She said, “Without accurate data we cannot accurately talk of milestones as we would lack evidence to drive effective policy. Without data our planning process would be defective, our policy goals would be compromised and our implementation level would be difficult to measure as we would lack the benchmarks to guide effective works.”
On the issue of statistics, Dr Felicia Omoluabi, Principal Investigator at PMA2020, a data collection organisation explained that PMA2020/Nigeria’s implementation which is led by the Centre for Research, Evaluation Resources and Development (CRERD) and Bayero University Kano (BUK) are currently tracking eight of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Indicators to assist the government and partners in making SDGs work for the girl-child. “Through a network of female resident enumerators working in their communities, PMA2020 Nigeria uses innovative mobile technology to routinely gather rapid turnaround, cost effective population data on family planning, water, sanitation and hygiene,” Omoluabi said.
Acting Director General, NCWD, Mallam Sadeeq Omar expressed a readiness to provide a sustained voice in drawing attention to the critical issues of the summit. He expressed that the “outcome of the summit will draw the attention of policy makers to the critical issues that have continued to plague women and girls with a view to strategically addressing and including the issues in the strategic implementation plan of the current administration.