‘Nigerian women, young girls are in dire straits’

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 BRITISH Council Nigeria has presented the 'Gender in Nigeria Report 2012', highlighting the worrisome plights of about 80.2 million women and adolescent girls in the country.

The report, which focused on issues and policies aimed at improving the lives of girls and women in Nigeria, however, stressed that the country must invest in them to fast-track economic development and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

It will be formally launched on Thursday, May 10, 2012.

The 91-page report revealed that no fewer than 54 per cent of Nigerians still live in poverty and the proportion has doubled since 1980 (when about 28 per cent were classified as poor). Amid this, 42 per cent of Nigerian children are malnourished, most of who were found to be girls.

In the area of education, girls' dropout rates are high. According to the report, Nigeria has the largest number of out-of-school children in the world. The figures show wide disparities between states and across communities.

The report stated: "70.8 per cent of young women aged 20-29 in the North-West are unable to read or write compared to 9.7 per cent in the South-East. Several reasons explain this: early marriage, early childbirth, poor sanitation and the shortage of female teachers.

"Nigeria has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world. One Nigerian woman still dies in childbirth every 10 minutes.

"Nearly six million young women and men enter the labour market each year but only 10 per cent are able to secure a job in the formal sector, and just one-third of these are women".

The report also revealed that Nigeria is among the 30 "most unequal countries" in the world with respect to income distribution. The poorest half of the population holds only 10 per cent of national income.

Significant rural-urban differences in income distribution impact particularly on women, because 54 million of Nigeria's 80.2 million women live and work in rural areas where they provide 60-79 per cent of the rural labour force.

The country is also marked by huge geographical disparities. The report stated: "Human development outcomes for girls and women are worse in the North, where poverty levels are sometimes twice as high as parts of the South (72 per cent in the North-East compared with 26 per cent in the South-East and a national average of 54 per cent).

"Nearly half of all children under five are malnourished in the North-East, compared to 22 per cent in the South-East. Hausa girls, for example, are 35 per cent less likely to go to school than Yoruba boys. The impact of inequality on the lives of girls and women is reflected starkly in health and education outcomes, nationally and between North and South".

Project Manager, British Council Nigeria, Roy Chikwem, told reporters that the report brought together the existing body of credible Nigerian and international research evidence on realities of life of women and adolescent girls in the northern and southern part of Nigeria.



The Guardian

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