The Deputy Regional Director of UNFPA, BEATRICE MUTALI during a public presentation of the report in Abuja, called for more investment in girl child to enable them harness their potentials.
The 2016 State of the World Population report was titled: How our future depends on a girl at this decisive age.
MUTALI explained that forced marriage, child labour, female genital mutilation and other harmful practices, threaten the world’s ambitious development agenda.
On her part, the UN Resident Coordinator and UN High Commissioner for Refugees, ANGELE DIKONGUE-ATANGANA appealed to the National Assembly to consider and adopt law to ban child marriage in Nigeria.
DIKONGUE-ATANGANA said the partnership between UN system and other partners became necessary to ensure that the girl child was set free from the menace of early marriage, threatening their lives.
The Chairman of the National Population Commission, EZE DURUIHEOMA said the report was a constant reminder that population related issues constitutes the bedrock of development.
He said data from the 2006 population census indicated that the population of 10-year old girls in the country was over one million, stressed that by 2016 the teenage girls’ population is expected to increase to two million, three hundred and seventy-four thousand, nine hundred.
Leave feedback about this