By Adeniyi Adedoyin
The Platform for Amplifying Voice and Empowerment of Girls (PAVE); a non-governmental organisation has lamented that many Nigerian girl-child lack basic information about their rights on gender-based violence and thereby exposing themselves to the risk of being a victim.
The NGO said that it has also observed that many of the girls too do not have sufficient information about their menstrual cycle and has therefore urged the government and other stakeholders to deploy resources to drive adequate enlightenment to bridge this gap.
The Programme Director of the NGO, Damola Oyetunji disclosed this during the 3-day workshop and fellowship held for the girls at Owode Egba in Obafemi/Owode local government area of the state.
Oyetunji lamented that girls especially in their adolescent stage don't have proper information about their basic human rights and menstrual cycle, which she said is very important to them.
She noted that the inability of girls to know their rights has led to sexual harassment of the adolescent girls, which many think is a normal thing in life.
Oyetunji said the 3-day fellowship was to give the girl child proper information that they need to know about their gender, which includes, providing crucial health, financial, and life skills information, services, and tools to support teenage girls.
"The PAVE Project aims to create a platform where girls can freely express themselves, learn, and enhance their leadership capacities", she said.
She emphasized that the initiative establishes safe spaces for girls to access knowledge and resources related to sexual health, mental health, and career development.
The project targets both in-school and out-of-school girls aged 12 to 19 years. The project aims to equip girls with the necessary information and tools to make informed decisions about their health, finances, and personal development.
The overall goal is to support girls, enabling them to realize their full potential by providing them with the support, knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to make informed decisions regarding their health, finances, and personal development.”
Speaking on the health aspect of the the girls child, Oyetunji said, "if a girl of 19 years old could not take good care of herself in terms of personal hygiene during menstruation, this could lead to complications in future".
"When a girl child doesn't know personal hygiene at 19 years old, it is delicate because it can lead to infection and serious complications in future, so imaging girls of that age don't have information about things like that in this community".
"We have reached over 5,000 girls and expect those who we have trained to extend the information to others as well, because part of their project after the training was that they come up with challenges in their community, and launched a campaign on it, tagged "Stop them before they stopped us".
"We call the government and policymakers to reach out to these girls, they shouldn't just be making decisions for them. Before we came here, a lot of them didn't know that they had rights, they think what they are going through is normal, they have been sexually abused, and the percentage of them knowing their rights is zero"
Meanwhile, one of the beneficiaries, Sulaimon Aishat disclosed that before the PAVE programme, they experienced boys harassing girls in her neighborhood, but PAVE has been able to restore normalcy by educating girls' children to know theirs.
She urged to continue the fellowship to enable more girls' children to benefit.
Also, Olarenwaju Temilowu noted that the training had enabled her to know the rights from wrongs, stating that girl child rights must be protected all the time.
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