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  • Title: The girl child: a blessing or an abomination.
    Author: Olunloyo S.
    Journal: Niger Pop; 1993; ():41-2. PubMed ID: 12318629.
    Abstract:
    In Nigeria, the preference for sons may not be blatant as in China, but it exists nonetheless. Every Nigerian father, whether rich or poor, desires a male child. Women are in tears at their first birth, if the child is a girl, because of the fear of rejection and disappointment by the husband. Mothers are blamed for producing girls, even by those who know that a father's chromosomes determine the sex of the child. Fertility and marriage are already highly charged issues in Nigeria, without adding sex preference. In Nigeria, sex preference goes back to inheritance laws that restricted transfer of property and wealth to males. Sex preference has not kept pace with societal changes because of posterity; the desire for a son to carry on the family name and guarantee fathers pseudo-immortality. Even professionals are not insulated from family and community pressures. The general acceptance among educated classes is that a daughter is as good as a son, but sons are still preferred. Uneducated fathers believe that the son will be better able to find work in order to help the family unit. Another uneducated woman, who performs female circumcision, believes that promiscuity will be avoided by circumcision, and sons will bring mothers support in old age. In Nigeria, there are still places where girls are married off at the age of 9 years to old men, and sexually transmitted diseases are high among adolescents. Young girls may die in childbirth or in botched abortions. There are those proposing legislation to protect girls, at the same time as there are those who believe that sex preference is the choice of parents.
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