The Girl-Child And Current Challenges

The International Day of the Girl-Child is a
United Nations Observance held annually
on October 11 to promote girls’ rights and highlight gender inequalities that exist between the sexes. But even more is the vulnerabilities that threaten the very survival of the girl-child.
The day provides opportunity for people and organizations to raise public awareness on the different types of discrimination and abuses that are inflicted on the girl-child around the globe. It is also hoped that solutions will be found, even as the average person understands the avoidable danger girls face.
The 2015 celebration with the theme: “The Power of the Adolescent Girl: Vision for 2030” was programmed to deliberately re-enforce steps taken to advance the interest of the girl-child against the backdrop of the prevailing discrimination and violence against girls and violations of their human rights.
While The Tide salutes the United Nations for observing the day, the idea of attaching the challenge of the girl-child to a global vision framework is rather disturbing. The fact is that the subject has assumed an emergency proportion and should be so treated now. Waiting for years to achieve such goals can be too clostly.
It is obvious that the girl-child all over the world is particularly vulnerable to certain human rights violations and therefore requires urgent domestication of additional protective legislations that will effectively check existing dehumanising factors in the civil, political, economic, social and cultural laws working against the interest of girls.
Today, the girl-child faces severe discrimination and abuses based on gender, age, race, colour, language, religion and ethnicity. Society pays less attention to her standard of living adequate for her intellectual, physical, moral and spiritual development.
No healthcare programme is designed to take care of the peculiar needs of the girl-child, she is exposed to unsafe environment. The girl-child is often subjected to various degrees of cultural practices, customs and traditions harmful to the child, including female genital mutilation, sexual exploitation and trafficking. She is also forced into early marriage to persons older than her grand parents.
The plight of the girl-child is nothing but a return to primitivity. It is the failing of the family, the society, the religious bodies and governments at all levels. If society cannot protect the weakest member of the population, the State of nature takes place, where only the strong survives.
But this must change because the girl-child is the one that grows and becomes the mother that carries and gives birth to all. They nurtured and sacrificed so much for life. If we allow them to be broken so early, the consequences can be huge.
Although, the Ministry of Women Affairs is expected to champion this cause, the plight of the girl-child is getting out of hands. The special need for education and medicare still falls short. The tendency to prey on them is on the rise and society appears not to notice.
The Tide thinks that the time has come when society must take responsibility for the girl-child and help build a saner society. Preventing the girl-child from abuses must be considered a high priority, and detailed laws and policies put in place to address it.
Different jurisdictions should develop their own definitions of what constitutes girl-child abuse and discrimination for the purposes of removing predicaments of the girl-child. In fact, the authorities must stop demonising sex and undertake early sex education with a view to demystifying it.
All forms of failure to act on the part of parents, organizations and governments that could result in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation must be avoided. Also, the girls must be allowed to grow among boys, especially, in co-educational institutions and provide the needed commonality among the sexes.
If the world can afford to give lip-service to human challenges, the burdens of the girl-child should not be treated as usual. It is a matter that cannot be left in the hands of government because to the extent government can go, the cultural, religious and social authorities should support and not otherwise.