The Nigerian Girl Child and Reality of An Abusive Absurdity: A Reflection on Philosophy for Children in Higher Educational System

Abstract

One of the social ills in contemporary Nigeria state is the abusive condition of the girl child. She has been abandoned, starved, beaten, enslaved and sexually molested by the society that ought to care about her but instead tames and guides her. Hence the paper attempts a social re-engineering process through philosophy for children dimension in higher education with a view to minimising, if not curbing, this ugly tragedy. The study employed both philosophical analysis and descriptive survey type. Philosophy for children is not an effort at teaching children the philosophical jargons but rather towards enablement of philosophical skills and its applications to questions of personal significance to the student. Findings revealed that the girl child abuse, though on the rise recently, but could be reversed where she is well trained in philosophical mindset at early age. Also, justice prevails when the abuse is timely reported to the law enforcement agents. Further, the establishment of victim-friendly court system would go a long way in facilitating quick dispensation of justice. Nevertheless, the vigorous pursue of ethical genuine poverty alleviation programmes would undoubtedly reduce the trend of the abuse in the society. The paper concluded that society should endeavour to nip the problem in the bud through conscientious philosophical guidance of Nigerian girl child at all time by all stakeholders. It is stated that the involvement of higher educational system will assist the parents, guardian, girl child, law enforcement agents, the law makers, the clinicians, the theoretician, the researcher and all other concerned with children’s welfare in such a way to shed light on a path of progress in decreasing and preventing this affront on our girl child in particular and children in general.