The Minister for Women Affairs, Dame Pauline Tallen, has called for the support of the Girl-Child education to enhance a sustainable society free of criminality.
Tallen made this call at an Annual Conference in Abuja, themed ’21st century Nigerian Girl Child, societal norms and traditional parenting’ organised by the Association of Nigerian Female Students (ANFS)in collaboration with West Africa Network for Peacekeeping (WANEP) stating that this in the long run will create a family of relevance with profound advantage to the society.
Represented by the Special Assistant Technical, Ms. Princess Jummai Idonije, the Minister reiterated the need for parents and authorities to ensure an enabling environment for the Girl Child to thrive in education and other relevant sections.
She said: “There is a need for us to make continuous effort to balance the percentage of girls in school to reach her maximum capability.
“All hands must be on deck to support the Girl-Child to create a home of properly nurtured children as educating a woman is educating a nation ,without the girl Child there can be no continuity of society there must be an attitudinal change.”
Speaking, Chief Executive Officer Youth Star Initiative, Mr. Kingsley Bangwell, disclosed that “the Girl-Child need to be properly represented, they should strive to add value to the environment and society.
According to him “the girl Child should be enabled to grow into a 21st century woman who is out to solve problem and move from just being a woman.”
Earlier, the President of ANFS, Ms. Sarki Sylvia Yemi, in her welcome address reiterated the need change the narrative concerning the girl Child and the future of women in Nigeria as for a long time our country and indeed Africa has tenaciously held unto oppressive practices making the girl Child feel that her highest aspiration should be to house wife.
“There is need to open up opportunities to the girl Child to forge a future different from what ancient tradition determined. I stressed that the path forged by our ancient tradition is not bad but needs to be updated to the 21st century standard to equip Girl Child with the necessary impetus to confront current challenges in the global arena.
Stating also the necessity of upgrading the traditional parenting as to the method of raising the boy Child to respect and value their female siblings, school mates and women in general.
“The male child must be raised to that every man no matter how highly placed is born an raised by a woman and through the influence of a mother figure as such they must grow to accord women the requisite respect needed to build corporative efforts aimed at rebuilding our society which is already been ravaged by drug abuse and other vices.
“There is need to raise our voices to be heard from the home to the school to the market places, a need to raise our girl Child using an upgraded traditional parenting style which must be felt from every seat of power.”
