NIGERIA - FACES OF GIRLS - THEY
STUDY, WORK, CARE FOR FAMILIES - ALL GIRLS IN NIGERIA DESERVE SAFETY &
SPIRIT, DREAMS & RIGHTS
Gender in Nigeria 2012 UK Report
Link:
By Lauren Hansen | May 7,
2014 - It has been three weeks since more than 200 schoolgirls
were kidnapped in northeastern Nigeria by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram. A global
social media campaign — #BringBackOurGirls — has since taken off calling for their
return.....Nigerian women are "the nation's hidden resource," the
British Council in Nigeria declared in its 2012 "Gender in Nigeria
Report." They tend to be better educated than their male counterparts, and
make up a majority of the rural workforce. And yet, the country's yawning
gender disparity means women are reportedly five times less likely to own land
than men, and hold only a handful of the country's decision-making positions.
The report ultimately concluded that investing in girls today will improve
productivity and growth, as well as lead to a more peaceful, healthy, and
skilled workforce in the future.
May 15,
2012: A girl shows off a slate with
letters and numbers outside a school in Koluama village, Bayelsa state. | (REUTERS/Akintunde
Akinleye)
A girl hawks drinking water on a
street in the northern city of Maiduguri. | (REUTERS/Akintunde Akinleye)
Girls laugh outside their school
in Jos. | (Anthony Asael/Art in All of Us/Corbis)
Sept.
27, 2012: A girl pilots a canoe through the
floating slum of Makoko in Lagos. | (AP Photo/Jon Gambrell)
Muslim girls walk through the village
of Ganjuwa. | (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)