Back in 2015 the twitter hashtag #BeingFemaleInNigeria was first created through a discussion in a reading club in Abuja, Nigeria, that discussed the book We should all be feminists by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The use of the hashtag quickly grew, and many women and men used the 140 characters available in a tweet to express their feelings towards the situation of women and inequality in the country.
But how is the situation today, 6 years after the hashtag first appeared, for women and what does it mean to grow up in Nigeria as a girl?
As of November 2021, women account for 49.5% of the total population of 213,728,826, making Nigeria the 7th most populous country in the world. Overall, the country has one of the youngest populations globally, with 40.9% of the population under the age of 15. This is typical of a developing country and goes hand in hand with factors such as low life expectancy, low education levels and poor health care. It is estimated that only 49.68% of the adult female population can read and write.
When a girl is born in Nigeria, her life expectancy at this point is 48.4 years. However, this and the social role she will play are also highly dependent on factors such as culture and geographical factors.
There is a big difference between the north and the south of Nigeria, and statistics show that the northern states of the country are much poorer, generally spend less on their citizens and have fewer universities than the states in the south. Especially in the north, women are seen exclusively as mothers and wives.
In general, girls in Nigeria have a fundamental right to education but although female school and university attendance is increasing, there are still many cases, especially in rural areas, where families decide to send their daughters to work to support the family or get married instead of sending them to school.
In 2013, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed concern about the extremely high rate of child marriages among girls in the northern states. The initiative Girls not Brides estimates that 43% of girls are married off by the age of 18 and 16% by the age of 15. This ranks Nigeria 11th among countries with the highest child marriage rate in the world. In comparison, only 3% of boys are married before their 18th birthday, highlighting gender inequality, and showing that girls are not accepted as equal partners in marriage.
Relating to this, it is also important to take a look at abortion rights. Nigeria is one of the countries with the strictest abortion laws in the world and only allows legal abortions if the mother's life is in danger. As a result, many women resort to unsafe abortion methods, leading to abortion-related complications and an increase in mortality and morbidity rates in the country. On top of that, many women in rural areas have little or no access to adequate healthcare facilities. Young women in particular are at risk of this, as there is little sex education and a lack of services that provide them with access to contraceptives.
In summary, statistics show that since the first #BeingFemaleInNigeria tweet, many challenges to improving living conditions of women in Nigeria remain to this date. However, the Nigerian government has committed to improving the lives of girls and women and eliminating child and forced marriage and the resulting school dropout rates due to early marriage and pregnancy by 2030. Especially the region of Northern Nigeria should benefit from a general economic improvement of the country and implementation of the government's planned strategies.
Sources included Countrymeters, UnWomen Africa, GirlsNotBrides, CGD (Center for Global Development)
Article by Lena Burkhard