Hi everyone, Welcome!
I am Claire Igwe. I would like to welcome everyone joining us to this tweet chat.

Our conversation today is a warm-up to the PAD PROJECT, an outreach planned by FIGURE (Feminist Inspiring Gender Unity, Respect and Equality)

In early March last year, the FIGURE family reached out to young girls in Ile-Ife with sanitary pads, some valuable sex education and smiles😇.

It would be a thrill to do this again this year, with your support of course.
We would be having @afrika_sisi (founder and facilitator of FIGURE) as our guest for this chat
We would be hitting a very pressing but commonly overlooked topic today; Sexual Harassment and Assault of Underage Girls in Secondary Schools.
So, we would get right on to the chat.
Please feel free to jump in with your contributions and retweet.
Hi @afrika_sisi, welcome.

So, my first question for you would be;
Do you think sexual harassment and predation by educators is limited to tertiary institutions, or do you agree it exists in secondary schools?
@afrika_sisi
You are right. Homophobia is really the only reason why anyone would think having a same sex secondary school would curb sexual harassment.

Question 3 for you;
Do you think that gender roles of patriarchy restricts career choices for girls, when they start to -
make the choice of going into either science, commercial or art classes?
So true @afrika_sisi. I remember all those bend well and is this what you would cook for your husband? I was a child.

Another question;
Do you think that ageism and the privilege given to elderly people in our culture is a factor in the prevalence of sexual harassment of minors?
This reminds of when I was a child and this old man held my hand, calling me his wife. Adults around were just laughing.

Another question;
Do you think there is a difference between minors giving consent to fellow minors and minors "giving consent" to an adult?
@afrika_sisi
@afrika_sisi That is how people on here were arguing that a 14 year old child can give consent to a 20 year old.

We are almost at the end of this chat, thanks for still being here.

What is your take on child marriage and the age of consent in Nigeria?
Again, @afrika_sisi thank you so much for sticking with us throughout this chat.

This is the final question for today.
Do you agree with the national assembly's recent suggestion that child brides should be allowed to vote?
I didn't know what to think when I heard what the national assembly was suggesting. It is bad that we have gotten to the point where these people aren't ashamed of publicly declaring their wickedness.

Thanks once again @afrika_sisi for joining us this evening.
This is the end of this chat for today. I am grateful to everyone that has shared, commented or liked. Thank you.

Another one would be coming up this February. I would keep you posted.
Like I said at the beginning, this is in preparation for the PAD PROJECT we started last year. You can contribute towards the project by sending anything you have to:0006838471, Tewogbade Dasola Bolutife, Stanbic. Nothing is too small.

Thank you so so much.

More from Society

This is a piece I've been thinking about for a long time. One of the most dominant policy ideas in Washington is that policy should, always and everywhere, move parents into paid labor. But what if that's wrong?

My reporting here convinced me that there's no large effect in either direction on labor force participation from child allowances. Canada has a bigger one than either Romney or Biden are considering, and more labor force participation among women.

But what if that wasn't true?

Forcing parents into low-wage, often exploitative, jobs by threatening them and their children with poverty may be counted as a success by some policymakers, but it’s a sign of a society that doesn’t value the most essential forms of labor.

The problem is in the very language we use. If I left my job as a New York Times columnist to care for my 2-year-old son, I’d be described as leaving the labor force. But as much as I adore him, there is no doubt I’d be working harder. I wouldn't have stopped working!

I tried to render conservative objections here fairly. I appreciate that @swinshi talked with me, and I'm sorry I couldn't include everything he said. I'll say I believe I used his strongest arguments, not more speculative ones, in the piece.

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This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.

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This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.