Make Women and Girls Voices Count!



Women and girls have struggled with a long history of marginalization, disenfranchisement and vulnerability. While this comes from a background of patriarchy that places power in the hands of the men and completely excludes the women, global efforts have been in place to challenge the patriarchy and advance gender equality and equity.



Grassroots mobilization has been very critical to the results recorded so far. Although the results have only been growing gradually over the decades, there is more to be done to achieve gender equality. Grassroots mobilization empowers individual citizens to take more active roles in the legislative and political processes in their community or nation.



Girls still face poor access or lack of access to basic education. In addition, poverty, religious and traditional practices position many girls to become victims of child early or forced marriage (CEFM), child abuse, gender-based violence, and other vices such as female genital mutilation, breast ironing and even poor access or lack of access to basic healthcare and other essentials for livelihood. Progressing into womanhood, women continue to suffer from poverty, unemployment and underemployment, various forms of gender-based violence, low or zero representation in decision making positions and other traditional harmful practices that prevent women from owning land and other assets and other practices that subject women to hardship and takes advantage of a vulnerability that was already inflicted upon women from socio-cultural constructions that draw their origin from patriarchal history. While these realities are peculiar to many countries of the world today, grassroots mobilization has also developed to address the situation in various societies.



Sadly, women and girls don't have a voice in all of this. They still face the challenge of voicing their thoughts or expressing their ideas because they are raised to believe that they should be seen and not heard or they may only speak at the permission of the men and their opinions can only be considered at the discretion of the men. Therefore, It is very important to focus attention to the voices of girls and women. Men need to realize that women are real people who have a heart, have perceptions thoughts and ideas like the men do. And so, their voices should count in the same way the men's voices count. Women and girls need to challenge their status quo and position themselves where they can positively change their situation. And this starts first at the foundation; women need to rise up and challenge the legislative and political processes that marginalize them and constantly eliminate them from active engagement and influence in the socio-economic and political development of society.



Grassroots mobilization has been effective in some quarters and this only encourages us to do more. Highly commendable is the recent collaboration that place girls at the centre of the post-millennium development goals which is globally celebrated today. We must keep the momentum and continue to make women and girls voices count! I want to take action in my country, Nigeria and across the African Continent and I am looking to work with African women leaders that can mobilize the grassroots across various communities in Africa. Let's make women and girls voices count in Africa and we would make a difference across the world!

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