FIC (Abia State) – The Wife of the Governor of Abia State, Mrs. Nkechi Ikpeazu has noted that there has been a slight improvement in the status of the Girl child in some segments of society pointing out that things are far from being idyllic as a lot more positivity needs to be engendered.
Speaking as the World marked the International Day of the Girl-Child, Mrs. Ikpeazu said there are still quite a number of problems that confront the Nigeria Girl child directly and indirectly limiting her development.
She named them to include sexual abuses, poor access to education, child labour, forced marriage, as well as discrimination in the family nucleus and society.
On the theme of this year’s celebration, Mrs. Ikpeazu said the Digital Generation has come up with a new set of challenges that needs new strategies to combat them.
“One of the strategies is to increase access to Information and Communication Technology for the Girl Child.In this twenty-first century, Science and Technology is the oxygen that keeps society alive and is capable of empowering the Girl child beyond the limitations I mentioned before.” she said
“As our World becomes a global village where information and knowledge can be gotten at the speed of light, we can close the gender gap by increasing the access girls have to information and communication technology. I must concede that there have been some successes in this regard in the area of early and tertiary education, entrepreneurship, entertainment, marketing and others however things are far from being idyllic as a lot more needs to be done.
In Africa, one of the issues would be to increase internet penetration rate and to make access to internet a human right”, Mrs. Ikpeazu opined.
“We must also promote the girl child as agents of change. We need to invest in them and protect them from Gender-Based Violence.
We need to tackle inequalities and discrimination on many fronts,” she added.
Mrs. Ikpeazu called governments, Community Based Organizations, Faith-Based Organizations, Civil Society Groups, Human Rights Groups , Husbands, and other Stakeholders in society to devote more resources to developing, protecting and empowering the Girl Child.
In a related development , a US based Non for Profit Organisation ,Inspire Hope Foundation, collaborated with Initiative for Rural Revival and Enlightenment (IRRE ) and National Orientation Agency (NOA) Abia State to commemorate the 2021 International Day Of The Girl Child at Holy Rosary Girls Secondary School , Umuahia. Mr Kingsley Igwe who represented the State Director, Dr. Ngozi Okechukwu said the Girl Child is important in family and social development of any society and so the Theme informs the need to empower her with today’s necessary digital knowledge for exploits .
Other Speakers include Barrister Chinenye Atuma, Mrs Uzumma Okoroafor, Mrs Uloma Ogbulu and Mr Kelechi Ahiabuike who spoke on Overview of Girl Child Day, it’s origin and essence, Importance of The Girl Child, Traditional Practices Against The Girl Child, Girl Child in The Digital Generation and The Child Rights* were also explained to them.
At the end gifts were distributed to more than sixty students present.
The Vice Principal of the School , Mr Sunday Nwagboso, in his vote of thanks expressed gratitude to NOA, IRRE and Inspire Hope Foundation for finding their school worthy to receive the lectures.
