The international human rights group, Amnesty International has called on governments at all levels to prioritise the rescue and reintegration into the society of girls caught in the vortex of insurgency who had suffered insurgency.
Ms Barbara Magaji, Programme Manager, Amnesty International, made the call yesterday (Friday October 11) in Abuja, the FCT, at a programme organised by Amnesty International to illuminate the challenges faced by girls.
Magaji said that the programme was in commemoration of the 2024 International Day of the Girl Child and had the theme “Girls’ Vision for the Future”.
She added that the programme engaged girls to speak for girls by empowering them to lend their voices to the campaign for the reintegration of girl survivors of insurgency in the North-East.
She said that girls from different secondary schools in the FCT are demanding that the government should attend to those girls who had faced violations.
“Part of our agenda for this year is to push for reintegration of the girls and young women who have had all types of violations by the terrorists across the country,” the News Agency of Nigeria quoted Magaji as stressing.
“Our advocacy is for the government not to forget them. Some of them have come back with children who are tagged children of terrorists and some are still there.
“So, our call to the government is to ensure that they reintegrate them back into the society to take care of them to ensure that those who still want to be educated are educated and ensure other provisions like health.
“Some of them left as girls, some of them have come back as mothers. So it is important that the government addresses this and attends to their needs,” she said.
Magaji said that Amnesty International was also using the event of the Girl Child Day to advocate an end to harmful practices like breast flattening, genital mutilation among others against girls.
Ms Helen Adah, Programme Manager, Amnesty International, said that Oct.11, the International Day of the Girl Child, is a day set aside to celebrate girls all around the world.
“At Amnesty International, we value every child, the girl child as much as the boy child. But the girl child faces different unique challenges, so this is a day to bring those challenges to the limelight.
“This is not only about their challenges, we also want to celebrate their wins, their potentials and that is why we have invited girls from different schools to celebrate them” she said.
