Politics
ACTIONAID Nigeria (AAN), a Non-Governmental Organisation, has taken its campaign to Abaji Area Council in Abuja, canvassing for the girl-child education as a means to ending early marriages in the council.
Mr Abdulrahman Ajiya, Chairman, Abaji Area Council on Wednesday stressed the need for stakeholders to educate the girl-child in their various communities.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the campaign had its theme tagged “Education before marriage”.
Ajiya, who was represented by Mr Noma Sheshi, Head, Department of Education in the council, said the country would only move forward and free from social vices if residents were educated.
According to him, religious and cultural beliefs that hinder access to education should be avoided and traditional and religious leaders are essential in this fight.
“There is what we call negative cultural practices that hinder us to access this western education. In this 21st century where education has turned digital with ICT, the society is moving very fast.
“Those of us who have found ourselves in the Federal Capital Territory are still shying away from Western education.
“It is sad to discover that instead of sending our children to school, we send them for hawking, we give them for marriage at tender age.
”At the age of eight, a child is given for marriage. Some of them even access this secondary school and primary school but they don’t stay till the end,” he said.
Ajiya added that to foster development associated with education, there was need for collective responsibilities to educate the young ones in the society.
“You are being educated, it is your responsibility to educate the young ones so that they too can take over the leadership of the community,” he said.
The chairman, therefore, pledged to ensure that all stakeholders in the council join hands to ensure that children remain in school as well as complete their education.
Mrs Geraldine Onyeka, Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, AAN said early child marriage had a lot of implications that if not handled, including negative impact on the economy.
“We are trying to sensitise the people on ending early child marriage knowing that early child marriage has so many implications both on the economy, poverty and so many other health issues.
“So, the essence of this is that if we encourage more of education, we see it as a way to also promote or bring up the age at which these people go for marriage and as well telling the girls/children alone are insufficient to solve this problem.
“So we are also looking at other people that are also stakeholders, talking about parents, religious leaders, community leaders to join in this campaign to encourage children especially female children to go to school,” she said. (NAN)
– Sept. 18, 2019 @ 15:56 GMT |
Tags: ActionAid sensitises Abaji communities on girl-child education
