Combating the Menace challenging West African girls and young women
By Stephen Isayinka (MICMC, AUSIP)
More than 28 million young women and girls in the West African region do not attend school, according to World Bank data from 2022. In the region, only 42% of girls are enrolled in secondary school on a gross level. Chad has a gender parity index for secondary education of just 0.53, and 17 of the 22 countries in the region, including Nigeria, have a gender parity index for secondary education below. As observed during the Ebola outbreak, when schools reopened after being closed for nearly a year, girls were 17 percentage points less likely to be in school than boys, so it is evident that the COVID-19 pandemic has also widened these gender gaps.
In an effort to promote the empowerment and realization of the human rights of girls and young women throughout Africa, International Women’s Day is celebrated annually on March 8th. There are many reasons why girls and young women are less likely to have the same access to secondary education as boys. One of the most crucial elements is sociocultural norms. In Ghana, for instance, if parents had to choose between their sons and daughters, 50% would choose to keep their sons in school. Child marriages and pregnancies are extremely common in the area, and they have been shown to have a strong correlation with the low levels of education in the local population.
UNICEF reports that 37 percent of women ages 20 to 24 in the region had their first marriage or civil union before the age of 18, with that number reaching as high as 76 percent in Niger.
Statistics show that more than 60% of women aged 20-24 who do not have a high school diploma or equivalent were married before they turned 18. Fifteen percent of Central African Republic’s adolescent females who dropped out of school early cited pregnancy as their primary reason.
Fortunately, initiatives to improve access to education for girls in the West African region are challenging but promising in certain regions. A 10-year ban on pregnant or parenting teenagers returning to school was lifted in Sierra Leone in 2020. The government of Ghana is providing financial incentives and other programs to help keep girls in school or get them back into the classroom. UNICEF calls Nigeria a “country of the young” because nearly half of the country’s 180 million strong population is under the age of 15. Current estimates place the number of children under the age of five at close to 31 million, and at least 7 million babies are born annually. While about 35% of Nigerians as a whole live in poverty, 75% of the country’s young people face economic hardship.
The known data about child health issues are likely to underestimate the true scale, given the low rates of birth registration, which can reach as high as 62% in some areas. About seven million children were registered as part of a nationwide campaign in 2016 that was tied to healthcare services; however, rapid population growth is slowing down the process.
Studies shows over 40 million girls and women experience an abnormally high rate of complications during pregnancy and delivery. Despite only making up 2.4% of the world’s population, the subregion is responsible for 10% of all maternal deaths worldwide. According to the most up-to-date data available, the maternal mortality rate is 576 per 100,000 live births, ranking it fourth highest in the world. The annual birth mortality rate is roughly 262,000, making it the second highest in the world. Current rates of infant mortality are at 69 per 1,000 live births, with under-5 mortality at 128 per 1,000. Malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhoea account for 64 percent of all deaths in children under the age of five. Despite significant investment in recent years, only a fraction of patients are able to get the care they need.
A further crucial observation is that high rates of diarrhoea-related deaths in West Africa are largely attributable to the lack of access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene education and resources among girls and young women. It was estimated in 2015 that 57 million Nigerians lacked access to improved water sources and 130 million lacked access to improved sanitation. It is estimated that 25% of Nigerians engage in daily open defecation.
However, Nigerian women and girls are open to a variety of forms of abuse and harmful cultural norms. According to a national survey conducted in 2014, 70% of children who experienced any form of violence before the age of 18 experienced multiple incidents of violence.
The highest number of child brides in Africa are found here; 23 million girls and women were married off at a young age. Nigeria has the third highest absolute number of women and girls (19.9 million) who have undergone FGM/C worldwide, despite having a lower prevalence of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) among girls and women aged 15-49 (27%).
Grandmothers and mothers-in-law in the South are largely responsible for this practice, which is meant to discourage sexual experimentation, get young women ready for marriage, and instill a respect for established norms.
The displacement of millions of people in northern Nigeria due to conflict has exacerbated preexisting difficulties in access to healthcare, water, sanitation, and education. The ability of girls to participate fully in society has been adversely affected by the turmoil, and although it is difficult to get accurate, up-to-date data in a situation where so many millions have fled their homes, one truth stands out: children, and especially girls, have been affected acutely.
In conclusion, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and stakeholders must recognize the importance of investing in and supporting girls in order to transform their deprivations, thereby preventing and responding to gender-based violence, and advancing both young adolescent girls’ secondary education, into pathways to a better life in West Africa, especially Nigeria. This is the reason why many Western nations have progressed while ensuring that women have the same rights and privileges as men. Thus, they are able to contribute to the advancement of their nation.
