Mixed grill of barriers, breakthroughs outlines lives Nigeria’s tender angels

Thirty years ago, the International Day of the Girl Child was inaugurated as a celebration of hope, equity, and justice. In Nigeria, this milestone has inspired decades of advocacy, policy reform, and grassroots action aimed at empowering the girl child. As this historic anniversary is being marked, GBENGA SALAU, in this report, chronicles the collective impact and challenges that have continued to shape the lives of the girl child nationally.

In June 1995, the Nigeria senior female football team, Super Falcons, had just played their second World Cup tournaments in Sweden. The players were just amateur footballers struggling to kick the ball.

From a rookie team, led by a certain 15-year-old Florence Omagbemi, the girls have metamorphosed into professionals commanding respect in the continent. Early this year, the Super Falcons won their 10th Women African Cup of Nations football competition.

Today, the Super Falcons is Africa’s most successful international women’s football team. The team is also the only women’s national team from the Confederation of African Football to have reached the quarterfinals in both the FIFA Women’s World Cup and the Summer Olympics.

They are also one of the few teams in the world and only African team to have qualified for every edition of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, with their best performance at the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup where they reached the quarterfinals.

Forty years ago, female participation in sporting competitions, especially football, was not encouraged. Parents did not allow their female children to engage in such activities as it was seen as the preserve of male. Girls who attempted were not only discouraged, they were warned.

But over the years, things have changed with campaigns in America and few other countries for equal earning for male and females as well as creating space for the girl child.

The campaign has become more robust in the last 30 years with the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA), which was a landmark commitment to gender equality, with adolescent girls at the centre of its vision for a more just world. The conference attracted over 189 countries, 17,000 participants, with more than 30,000 activists adopting the document, which is a visionary agenda for the empowerment of women.

The 1995 Beijing Platform for Action flagged key areas where urgent action was needed to ensure greater equality and opportunities for women and men, girls and boys. It also laid out concrete ways for countries to bring about change.

The document noted that when women are poor, their rights are not protected and they face double discrimination, on account of their gender and economic situation. Women, their families, communities and economies suffer as a result.

Education is essential for women to reach gender equality and become leaders of change. While women and girls today are far more educated than ever before, gaps remain. Educated women benefit entire societies, contributing to flourishing economies and the improved health, nutrition and education of their families. Education and training are also tools to help change harmful gender stereotypes. Women need to be healthy in order to realise their full potential.

Violence hurts women and girls and hampers their ability to thrive in multiple ways. Since the Beijing Conference, an historic two-thirds of countries have put laws on the books to stop domestic violence. Yet gaps in laws, implementation of legal protection and lack of access to essential services remain for women globally.

Whether in businesses, on farms, as entrepreneurs or employees, or through unpaid domestic or care work at home, women make enormous contributions to economies. Gender discrimination means women often end up in insecure, low-wage jobs, and constitute a small minority of those in senior positions.

Women are among the most affected by climate change. They are often the ones gathering water, fishing or farming land affected by flooding. Meanwhile, their voices are often ignored in environmental planning and management. They also have less access to land and productive resources.

Specific forms of violence and harmful practices, including female genital mutilation (FGM) and cutting, breast ironing and child marriage, affect girls in particular, including child sexual abuse.

As fallout of BPfA, the International Day of the Girl Child was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly on December 19, 2011, establishing October 11 as the yearly day of observance.

The day celebrates the power of girls, highlights the unique barriers and challenges they face globally, and promotes their empowerment and human rights, with the first official day observed in 2012.

The 2025 theme for International Day of the Girl Child is ‘The girl I am, the change I lead: Girls on the frontlines of crisis’. This theme highlights how girls are actively leading movements for gender justice, climate action, and other causes, especially in the face of global crises like conflict and climate disasters. It emphasizes the power of girls as change-makers.

In his message, the United Nations’ Secretary General, António Guterres, said: “Our world is besieged by crises. Conflicts are exploding. Climate disasters are accelerating. Displacement is at record highs. And it is often girls who pay the highest price. When crises hit, sexual violence and maternal mortality soar. Child marriage in situations of fragility is nearly two times higher than the world average. Girls are routinely locked out of decisions that shape their lives. But as this year’s theme reminds us, girls are also leading on solutions. Around the world, girls are driving movements for gender justice, education, climate change and so much more. I urge decisionmakers everywhere to: recognise the power of girls, and stand with them. Act on their demands. Prioritise their rights. And invest in their opportunities –– not only because it is right, but because it is essential for peaceful, prosperous societies.”

Since 1995, data available shows that more girls are in school than ever before, with significant gains in primary and secondary education enrolment.

Also, available statistics show that the global child marriage rates have declined, just as adolescent pregnancy has decreased in many regions owing to expanded access to reproductive health services. Similarly, legal protections against gender-based violence have been strengthened, and digital technology has provided girls with new platforms for advocacy and economic opportunities.

It is, therefore, not surprising that there has been a 39 per cent decrease in out-of-school girls in the last 20 years, according to a report launched by UNICEF, Plan International and UN Women launched by UNICEF, Plan International and UN Women.

This is just as the practice of female genital mutilation has declined, with countries including Burkina Faso and Liberia halving the share of girls subjected to the practice over the last 30 years. However, the global rate of decline according to the United Nations needs to be 27 times faster to meet the 2030 eradication target.

The report also said that girls today are less likely to marry under the age of 18 now; compared to 25 years ago, although one in five girls globally marry in childhood. Worthy to mention is the fact that globally, the number of adolescent girls giving birth has nearly halved over the past 30 years. Still, nearly 12 million adolescent girls aged 15-19 are expected to give birth in 2025.

While the number of adolescent girls and young women who are illiterate has nearly halved in the last three decades, the report highlighted that nearly 50 million adolescent girls and young women today are unable to read or write a simple sentence.

Just like in football, for decades, aviation, the military and advanced STEM, an abbreviation for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, professions in Nigeria were considered out of reach for most women and girls.

But in recent years, this narrative has begun to change. Women such as Chinyere Kalu, the first Nigerian female commercial pilot; Abimbola Jayeola, the first Nigerian female helicopter pilot and Flying Officer Blessing Liman, the Nigerian Air Force’s first female combat pilot, have shattered long standing gender barriers.

In 2019, for example, the Nigerian Air Force winged its first female fighter and helicopter pilots, Flying Officer Kafayat Sanni and Flying Officer Tolulope Arotile, marking a dramatic departure from over five decades of male-only combat aircrew.

More recently, Captain Adeola Sowemimo became Nigeria’s first woman to fly the Boeing 787 Dreamliner—another milestone in aviation. Beyond aviation, initiatives like APWEN’s innovation lab at University of Lagos and WITIN’s outreach programmes are providing young girls the tools and opportunities to thrive in engineering and technology.

Similarly, a 17-year-old student from Yobe State, Nafisat Aminu, emerged the top performer in English Language at the TeenEagle Global Finals, an international academic competition held in London, United Kingdom.

The Nigeria female basketball not only won the 2025 edition of the Women’s AfroBasket, they did it in style as they became the first team to win the tournament five times in a row, yet many of Nigeria’s male sporting teams are struggling to make any impact as they return from tournaments with no medals.

There are also other individual stories of girls and women breaking new grounds. Umeh Nkechinyere, a 16 year old student of Deeper Life High School was the top scorer in the 2023 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) with a cumulative mark of 360.

In 2001, at 19 years, Agbani Darego became the first black woman to win Miss World. Representing Nigeria, her win broke ground in international pageantry. Also, Faith Odunsi, at 15, won the Global Open mathematics competition beating contestants from around the world.

In 2020, Tobi Amusan broke world records in the 100m hurdles at the World Athletics Championships, becoming the first Nigerian and African woman to hold that record, showing excellence in track and field.

Odunayo Adekuoroye and Blessing Oborududu have won multiple medals for Nigeria in international wrestling—Commonwealth Games, World Championships, among other showing dominance in her sport, just as Ese Brume has been a major name for Nigeria in athletics, setting records and representing the country at many global competitions.

Furthermore, Lucy Ejike is a Paralympic Powerhouse. In six consecutive Paralympic Games, from 2000 through 2020, Ejike has won multiple medals in para-powerlifting for Nigeria—gold, silver, bronze—and even broke world records.

It is not just in sports, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, an economist, former Finance Minister, and now Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). She is the first African and first woman to hold that position. Similarly, in the 2025 JAMB, 1,007,275 females, which represents 50.6 per cent of students sat for the examination, 982,393 male, that is, 49.4 per cent wrote the examination.

Communications Support Consultant, Actionaid Nigeria, Teresa Usman, said: “Over the last three decades, the biggest advances for the Nigerian girl child have been the steady normalisation of girls’ education, the growing legal and policy frameworks that recognise girls’ rights, and the rise of community-level activism that holds institutions accountable. Where a generation ago, many communities accepted limited schooling for girls as inevitable, today far more families see secondary and tertiary education as attainable and valuable for girls. At the same time, laws and national strategies around violence against women and girls, child protection and gender mainstreaming in education have created footholds for service delivery and advocacy. Finally, the visible presence of girls and young women in civic life like running for office, leading NGOs, founding businesses has shifted perceptions about what girls can contribute.”

She said, “the most effective interventions combined three things: access, safety, and community ownership. And examples include: School-based interventions such as safe sanitation, separate latrines, menstrual health education that made school environments tolerable and dignified for adolescent girls. Community-driven campaigns and local women’s groups that changed social norms around early marriage and girls’ school attendance because change that’s locally owned is durable. Youth-led advocacy and national networks that put pressure on policymakers to adopt and implement protective laws which worked by linking grassroots realities to national accountability.”

The Executive Director, Glowing Splints Development Initiatives, Stella Francis, noted that over the past three decades, attitudes toward educating girls in Nigeria have shifted remarkably, saying “I have witnessed a slow but steady transformation from resistance and neglect to growing recognition of girls’ education as both a human right and a national priority.

“We have moved from indifference to awareness. Thirty years ago, girls’ education was often considered optional. In many communities, cultural beliefs, early marriage, domestic expectations and gender norms discouraged families from sending girls to school. Educating a girl was seen as a wasted investment because she was expected to marry early and “belong” to another family.”

Francis, however, attributed the change to sustained advocacy, public campaigns, and evidence linking girls’ education to national development as well as prominent female role models, with more parents seeing education as valuable for both boys and girls. The mindset that “education ends in the kitchen” has gradually given way to “when you educate a girl, you educate a nation.”

She said: “We have moved from Access to Empowerment. Earlier efforts focused mainly on enrollment, getting girls into classrooms. Now, the conversation has evolved to quality, safety, and empowerment. We now emphasise keeping girls in school, protecting them from gender-based violence, and ensuring they learn skills for leadership and economic independence.

“We have moved from counting how many girls attend school to asking how well they are learning and thriving. A lot of girls have now moved from the stereotype professions like teachers and nurses to becoming doctors, engineers and pilots. We have moved from policy gaps to institutional commitment.”

She observed that 30 years ago, policies on girls’ education were either weak or nonexistent, but today, Nigeria has joined global commitments such as the Beijing Platform for Action, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the Safe Schools Declaration.

“Government programmes, donor initiatives, and NGOs are now explicitly targeting girls’ education, with interventions like scholarships, conditional cash transfers, and menstrual hygiene support. While progress is undeniable, some gaps still remain. Nonetheless, in the last 30 years, attitudes have shifted from exclusion to empowerment. We are no longer asking “Should girls be educated?” but “How can we ensure that every girl learns, leads, and thrives?” she stated.

Francis noted that despite significant advocacy gains, girls in Nigeria continue to face intersecting barriers that limit their access to education, safety, and opportunity. “Millions remain out of school, especially in the northern regions and parts of the South due to insecurity, poverty, early marriage, and entrenched gender norms. The next phase of advocacy must therefore move beyond awareness to systemic change and accountability.

“Safe and Inclusive Education: Despite progress, millions of Nigerian girls, especially in the North and some part of the South are still out of school due to insecurity, early marriage, poverty, and cultural barriers. So, there’s need to urgently focus on strengthening security and safe school policies through the implementation of the Safe Schools Declaration, tackling school-related gender-based violence, providing sanitary facilities and menstrual hygiene support to reduce absenteeism and promoting digital literacy and STEM access for girls.”

Francis further said that there’s need to advocate for the full domestication and enforcement of the Child Rights Act across all states to guard against issues of early marriage as well as gender based violence. “There’s also a need to get the buy in of various Stakeholders, especially the Community and Religious Leaders to ensure that Sensitization on the ills of early marriage and gender based violence as well as elimination of harmful gender norms is carried to the grassroots.

“Advocating for gender-responsive governance and data-driven decision-making is also very necessary and important. There should be gender mainstreaming of our State and National Budgets. We need a gender responsive budgeting. There should be budgetary allocations and provisions for girls’ education and protection, provision of gender sensitive infrastructure in schools as well as inclusion of girls’ voices in policy discussions at all levels.

“A safe, quality, and inclusive education anchored on protection from violence, empowerment, and accountability should be a priority for us as a nation because when a girl is educated, safe, and heard, she becomes the strongest agent of change in her community and nation.”

On the impact and difference that have come from girls mentored and supported with life skills, Francis said such efforts shape the confidence, purpose, and resilience of these girls, stating that when girls are mentored and have a safe space to express themselves, the first visible change is their voice.

“Girls who once sat quietly at the back of classrooms begin to speak up, share ideas, and take leadership roles. They learn to believe that their opinions matter, that they can question, dream, and lead. I’ve seen shy, withdrawn girls become student leaders and peer mentors simply because someone believed in them and encouraged them.

“Safe spaces and life skills training help girls to navigate the social pressures that often limit their potential such as early marriage, abuse, peer pressure, and low self esteem. Through sessions on self-esteem, decision-making, reproductive health, and assertiveness, girls learn to protect themselves and make informed choices. Many begin to stand up against harmful practices and even influence peers and parents positively.

“Mentorship programmes expose girls to female role models who show that success is possible. When girls see women from similar backgrounds thriving in education, business, or leadership, it widens their imagination of what’s possible. Mentorship breaks the cycle of limitation and makes girls to move from needing help to becoming mentors themselves.

“Safe spaces create communities of support where girls share experiences without fear of judgment.
That sense of belonging is powerful — it reduces drop-out rates, boosts self-confidence, and encourages persistence even in difficult times. Girls begin to lift one another, forming networks that continue well beyond the program years.”

She noted that life skills training connect education to real life. It teaches communication, problem-solving, digital literacy, and financial management — skills that prepare girls not just to survive, but to thrive. “The result is evident: higher school retention, delayed marriage, stronger mental health, and improved community participation. With Life Skills Training, girls don’t just learn, they are transformed.

“When girls are mentored, protected, and equipped with life skills, they don’t just change their own stories, they rewrite the narrative for generations after them. The most powerful thing you can give a girl is not just schooling, but the skills, safety, and support to shape her own destiny.”

Chief Strategy and Engagement Officer for Plan International, Kathleen Sherwin, added: “Tireless efforts to combat gender inequality mean that a girl’s chances of going to school are significantly higher than three decades ago, and her chances of marrying or becoming pregnant as a child much lower. There is much to celebrate – but at the same time, this progress is fragile, uneven, and constantly under threat. Too many girls continue to face discrimination and abuse every day, simply for being young and female. Our work to achieve equality for girls must continue, working with girls, women and their allies around the world.”

Speaking on the influence the girl child, UNICEF Executive Director, Catherine Russell, said, “adolescent girls are a powerful force for global change. With the right support at the right time, they can help deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals and reshape our world. Investments in critical areas such as education, skills, protection and essential health and nutrition services can unlock the potential of adolescent girls across the world and lift-up communities and countries.”

However, as UN Women Executive Director, Sima Bahous, said: “Too many adolescent girls still face violence, limited education, and lack of health services — Our promise of leaving no one behind demands urgent action. We have come a long way, but we have miles to go before every girl’s potential is recognised and protected. Empowering all adolescent girls is the surest investment in a more sustainable, equitable, and peaceful world.”

Despite progress, many girls in Nigeria still face challenges like early marriage, lack of access to education, and gender-based violence. On what key gaps remain, and how can they be addressed in the next decade?

Usman said: “Persistent poverty and the economic drivers of early marriage and school dropout, inadequate scale and quality of adolescent sexual and reproductive health services, weak enforcement of laws (child marriage, GBV) and poor access to justice for survivors, school systems that don’t sufficiently prepare girls for digitally-enabled jobs or entrepreneurship.”

However, the 2025 theme for International Day of the Girl- Child shows that girls still face existential threats. Girls in conflict zones, marginalised communities, and those living in poverty still face significant barriers to education, healthcare, and economic empowerment. The climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic have exacerbated inequalities, increasing school dropout rates and vulnerability to gender-based violence. Moreover, while digital access has created opportunities, it has also introduced new threats, including online harassment and exploitation.

From April 2014 when no fewer than 276 female students at Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, in Borno State, were abducted by Boko Haram insurgents, there have been several other attacks, mostly targeted at young schoolgirls. At the last count, about 2000 schools have been closed, especially in the North where many parents no longer send their daughters to school for fear that they might not return.

Despite the 2019 ‘Safe School Declaration’ by the federal government, not much has changed. Across the country, criminal gangs now find it easy to carry away innocent students after which they demand outrageous amounts of money before releasing them to their parents.

On how to address them, Usman said: “Scale social protection targeted at adolescent girls and vulnerable households to reduce economic pressure to marry or drop out. Integrate comprehensive adolescent health services (including MHM and contraception) into schools and primary health facilities. Invest in community legal aid and fast-track GBV response mechanisms so survivors get effective remedies. Reform secondary curricula and vocational pathways to include digital skills, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship support targeted at girls. Importantly, fund and partner with local women- and youth-led organisations who are the most effective at reaching marginalised girls.”

She added, “girls have been leaders, innovators and organisers: starting peer-mentoring clubs in schools, running community radio shows, building small tech startups to solve local problems, and organizing protests against unsafe school conditions. Take for instance through our project SARVE III Project last year, the peace club structure set up in school, we saw Halim Abubakar from one of the government secondary schools in Kano lead as president and not only promote peace in her school but extend it to resolving conflict between her parents.”

Usman’s message for the girls as they celebrate is, “You belong in every room where decisions about your life and future are made. Learn relentlessly, claim your voice, build with others, and refuse anything that tells you your dreams must be smaller.”