The Mothers And Marginalised Advocacy Centre (MAMA Centre) has called for actions over the rising cases of mental health disorders among Nigerian girls.
The Executive Director of the centre, Chioma Kanu, made the call in her message commemorating the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (IDEVAW) 2021 themed “Orange the World: End Violence against Women Now!”
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“We recognize gender-based violence (GBV) as the impact of unchecked socioeconomic, cultural and political, discrimination perpetrated daily against women and girls in all of their diversity in Nigeria.
“While we receive regular reports of all forms of abuse, violation, harassment and degrading treatment leveled against women and girl child across the country, we observed that the nationwide lock-down necessitated by Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 had disproportionately triggered dreaded impact of Gender-based Violence largely felt by women and girls at all levels.
“We on this Day articulate the outcome of our research that the raising but unattended ‘Mental Health Disorders’ taking a toll on Nigerian women and girls, constitutes a major indicator of impact of Gender-based Violence amplified by COVID-19 pandemic,” Kanu said.
She said that mental health disorders are common in adolescents, with approximately one in five experiencing some form of emotional disorder.
The MAMA centre boss said that this corroborates the earlier report by United States National Comorbidity Survey Replication, revealing that 50 percent of all lifelong mental health disorders start by age 14 and 75 percent by age 24.
She also noted the high levels of ignorance about mental illness and negative attitudes towards individuals with mental health disorders in Nigeria.
She said, “Meanwhile, physical and psycho-emotional abuse in different settings like home and school are known to manifest as anxiety disorders and depression among adolescents and youths. This in Nigeria has been strongly linked to depression and drug abuse.
“We advocate mainstreamed awareness programs and targeted advocacy to the legislative and policy realms for policy formulation and translation into legislation for successful application of a school-based mental health literacy curricula to build teacher’s capacity on mental health literacy and improve mental health outcomes for the students.
“MAMA Centre is hopeful that having in place enabling legislation that mainstreams mental health literacy into school curriculum will produce an effective and sustainable way for increased awareness, improved knowledge, decreased stigma and positive help-seeking efficacy.”
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