Abstract
One of the social ills in contemporary Nigeria state is the abusive condition of the girl child. She has been abandoned, starved, beaten, enslaved and sexually molested by the society that ought to care about her but instead tames and guides her. Hence the paper attempts a social re-engineering process through philosophy for children dimension in higher education with a view to minimising, if not curbing, this ugly tragedy. The study employed both philosophical analysis and descriptive survey type. Philosophy for children is not an effort at teaching children the philosophical jargons but rather towards enablement of philosophical skills and its applications to questions of personal significance to the student. Findings revealed that the girl child abuse, though on the rise recently, but could be reversed where she is well trained in philosophical mindset at early age. Also, justice prevails when the abuse is timely reported to the law enforcement agents. Further, the establishment of victim-friendly court system would go a long way in facilitating quick dispensation of justice. Nevertheless, the vigorous pursue of ethical genuine poverty alleviation programmes would undoubtedly reduce the trend of the abuse in the society. The paper concluded that society should endeavour to nip the problem in the bud through conscientious philosophical guidance of Nigerian girl child at all time by all stakeholders. It is stated that the involvement of higher educational system will assist the parents, guardian, girl child, law enforcement agents, the law makers, the clinicians, the theoretician, the researcher and all other concerned with children’s welfare in such a way to shed light on a path of progress in decreasing and preventing this affront on our girl child in particular and children in general.
Highlights
In the history of mankind, children are susceptible to indignities, cruelties and horrors that human beings frequently inflict upon one another
The country Chief representative on child protection for UNICEF in Nigeria, Rachel Harvey, reported that the survey conducted in 2015 covered all of Nigeria’s 36 states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) show that six out of Ten children experience some form of abuse before they turn 18years
Though the search for an answer to this widespread discrimination against girls started in the 1990s1, using the rubric ‘girl child’ to elicit support for the cause of girls, but this girl child platform has not translated into effective, sustained or transformative national programmes
Summary
In the history of mankind, children are susceptible to indignities, cruelties and horrors that human beings frequently inflict upon one another. Beginning from birth, girls in many parts of the world experience that ‘apartheid of gender’ with her lesser claims decided at the moment when her biological sex is known» (Croll, 2006) This ‘apartheid of gender’ is reflected in the global figure for out-of-school children estimated at 121million with 53% (65million) being girls, over 80% of these girls live in Sub-Saharan Africa. The National School Census (NSC) of 2006 revealed that a Net Enrolment Ratio (NER) of 80.6% suggesting that a substantial proportion (19%) of primary school age population (6-11 years) is not enrolled in primary school nationwide. It implies almost 5 million Nigerian children of school age (6-11) are not in school.
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