A reality check on status of girl child in Naga society

Our Reporter
Dimapur, Jan. 23 (EMN): The status of girl child in Naga society is ‘far from reality’ as they are still vulnerable to injustice in many areas, especially in the education sector, despite the common notion that ‘our girls are safe’.

Jenpu Rongmei, founder and chief functionary of CAN Youth, a non-profit organisation, said this during an interaction with Eastern Mirror on the status of girl child in the Naga society.

As the country observes National Girl Child Day on January 24 to spread awareness about the gender-based discrimination, Rongmei said that a girl child has not been given “enough” quality education compared to the boys. He opined that ‘emotional blackmails happen to most of the girls’, citing that they are not even ‘allowed to play outside when boys are allowed to do so’.

‘The reality is that most of our children are not given proper guidance and proper freedom of what actually a girl child needs to be,’ he said.

He also mentioned that in terms of domestic helpers, ‘there are lots especially in Kohima and Dimapur’, and looking into this context, “the status of the gild child in our society has not improved”.

‘Though we have been talking so much about empowering girl child and education, we are still not implementing it,” he stated, asserting the need to bring ‘thought into action’.

“We have been thinking but we have never put to action, so I would say the status of women has not improved and we really need to work on that,” he opined.

Speaking of gender-based discrimination in the society, he shared that ‘it happens through our mindset only’, and suggested community-level based policy to curb the menace.

He urged the church to come up with a policy for the safety of the girl child and community-based policy in the village level. “The policy should create a kind of sensitising in the larger section of the society,” he added.

Also sharing about inheritance rights of a girl child, he said that “in a very few percent, I have seen about family giving inheritance to the girl child but if we see in the larger context this has not been happening (sic)”.

“This is a generation where we talk about gender equality, unity and empowerment,” he said, adding that ‘when we talk about empowerment, it is for both genders and therefore girls have every right to get what boys are getting’.

He further emphasised on the need to focus on education as ‘it speaks about the value of life’.

“To reduce gender-based discrimination, we really need to promote education for everyone,” he said, adding that both the girls and boys have to get proper education about the values of life.

“We need to promote the education which speaks about the value of life and not the bookish education alone,” he concluded.