Giving Compass' Take:

• Beedof Abireh talks with Global Citizen about how to address violence and neglect towards girls in Nigeria, who face a series of injustices on a daily basis.

• What are you doing to support systems-change and break the cycle of marginalization for girls in Nigeria?

• Read about how one activist is supporting girls' education in Nigeria.

Children in Nigeria are vulnerable to a wide range of abuses and harmful traditional practices. In 2014, a national survey found that 6 out of 10 children reported having suffered one or more forms of violence before reaching 18 years of age, and 70% of these experienced multiple incidents of violence.

Nigeria also has the highest number of out-of-school children globally and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that if a child misses school for even a short time there is a low chance, only about 25%, that the child will ever return.

Despite this dire situation, girls are still harder hit by these issues than boys. In Northeast Nigeria, only 41% of eligible girls receive a primary education, and the country also has the largest number of child brides in Africa: 23 million girls and women were married as children.

To promote girls’ rights and highlight gender inequalities, in Nigeria and all over the world, the United Nations holds the annual International Day of the Girl Child on Oct. 11.

In honour of this global event, Global Citizen spoke to Beedof Abireh, founder and executive director of Girlspace Charity, a nonprofit organisation in Nigeria that works with young, at-risk girls living in slums, camps for people who are internally-displaced, and rural communities to access quality education, on why it is important to empower the Nigerian girl child.

Beedof Abireh:

It is important to tackle these issues because any country that does not think of empowering its young girls and giving women access to education cannot be a truly great nation.

If young girls and women are empowered, they help to improve the quality of society. We realise the importance of this mission and that's why we're doing our best to contribute our quota.

Read the full conversation about girls in Nigeria with Beedof Abireh at Global Citizen.