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Girl Child Day, Kwankwasiyya Tasks Government On Young Girl's Rights

The Kwankwasiyya Movement has called on governments at all levels to come up with new modalities that will protect adolescent girls against any form of violation of their rights.

The Kwankwasiyya Movement has called on governments at all levels to come up with new modalities that will protect adolescent girls against any form of violation of their rights.

The Women Leader of the movement, Hajiya Zainab Audu Bako made the call on Wednesday while addressing a press conference in commemoration of this year’s International Day of the Girl Child.

Zainab lamented that it was unfortunate that adolescent girls had been subjected to serious challenges in their lives, noting they were victims of gender discrimination, violence, and marginalization such as female genital mutilation, forced and or early marriage, physical and sexual violence, child trafficking and forced labor among others.

She said it was pertinent for government at all levels to protect adolescent girls against any form of challenges especially at their adolescent ages.

“As the saying goes, ‘to educate a male/man is to educate an individual, but to educate a female/woman is to educate a nation."

"This was amongst the reasons that inspired Senator Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso to accord priority to girl child education during his two tenures as governor of Kano State.”

“Kwankwaso had since 1999 (his 1st tenure) had all hands on deck towards giving the best to the adolescent girl, women, and youths. Under the Kwankwasiyya ideology, he gave free feeding, school uniform, school books, and subsequently free education from primary to tertiary levels with special buses to convey adolescent girls only to and from school, daily for free."

“Courtesy of his efforts, Kano had the first female pilot and eight female marine engineers. This was in addition to the sponsorship of females to study various courses in medicine and pharmacology both home and abroad. He first sent 200 females only for the two fields with 100 females to specialized in gynecology and pediatrics,” she said.

She recalled that the intention was to sustain the program until the state got enough to cater for its booming population.

Zainab added that the leader of Kwankwasiyya had greatly impacted positively on adolescent girls in order to make her the best in every sphere of life.

“The wellbeing of adolescent girls is extremely vital towards achieving a viable and progressive State. And this is what made the Kwankwasiyya Movement to support, identify and celebrate the day of the adolescent girl to express the relevance of the adolescent girl, the need for all to protect, promote, respect, and befittingly uphold adolescent girl's honor in line with our religion and norms,” she said.

It would be recalled that the United Nations General Assembly had on December 19, 2011, adopted Resolution 66/170 declaring October 11 as the International Day of the Girl Child, recognizing girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world.

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