What we are currently doing to promote the economic empowerment of young women and girls subjected to Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) in Nigeria

The United Nations, at its General Assembly in November 2014, declared 15th July of every year as World Youth Skills Day. To commemorate this day, Society for the Improvement of Rural People (SIRP) and a Youth Economic Empowerment (YEE) platform called Unskilled to Skilled (U2S) will like to talk about what we are currently doing in this area here in Nigeria. This is especially with regards to promoting the economic empowerment of various young women and girls subjected to FGM/C in Nigeria.

Currently in Nigeria, 20 million women and girls are projected to have undergone one form of FGM/C or the other. This has led to not just a great health crisis here in Nigeria, but also a great economic problem for various FGM/C survivours in Nigeria. One might ask how FGM/C affects young women and girls economically. But the answer to this foregoing question is not far-fetched. When young women and girls are mutilated/cut they are married off immediately to various older suitors. This is done because FGM/C serves as a precursor to the girl child early marriage here in Nigeria. After she is married off, she invariably quits school so as to tend for her family. When she quits school, this automatically affects her chances of being gainfully employed in the future. This is one major way in which FGM/C affects young women and girls economically.

In tackling this problem, SIRP recently in conjunction with U2S adopted an innovative approach, which involves not just organizing various skill acquisition trainings for young FGM/C survivours, but also pairing them up with already established businesses here in Nigeria. We define YEE as the process by which youth gain the ability not just to make decisions for themselves, but also for others around them. We strongly believe that the end-result of every YEE program should be the financial independence of every youth.

With the foregoing definition in mind, we are currently working assiduously to ensure that various young women and girls that have been subjected to FGM/C are not just skilled, but are also financially independent here in Nigeria. So far we have used this innovative approach in more than 5 communities here in Nigeria. The result of this has been indeed huge and heart-warming. It definitely feels so great to see the huge impact that this approach is having on various FGM/C survivours here in Nigeria. We are also on course to scale up this approach to reach more communities here in Nigeria. We are not just committed to ending FGM/C in Nigeria, but are also passionate about the economic empowerment of various FGM/C survivours in Nigeria.

Happy World Youth Skills Day to you all!