Combating rural feminine youth poverty in Nigeria's democratic governance

Abstract

The study aimed at investigating the depth of girl/youth marginality and gender violent in rural Nigeria, assessing the distributive impact of the varied youth empowerment initiative of the democratic administrations since 1999 on the female rural youths development and empowerment and interrogating the prospects of a streaming possibility intervention framework that can engender gender equality, intersexes equality and sustainable economic empowerment for the marginalized and alienated rural female youth. Findings show that Government poverty interventions has little or no significant effect on rural feminine youths who are still characterized by lack of parental care, inaccessibility to education and land, joblessness, sexual violence including rape and abortion, vulnerability to sexual promiscuity and HIV/AIDS infection. The study recommends the need to formulate the right policies to cater for both the rural and urban dwellers and for all genders, paying special attention on the girl-child education in the rural areas, review the Land Use Decree of 1978 to ensure its workability in the rural area and men's cooperation to engender all sexes and reduce discrimination as well as rural feminine youth poverty.