By Chesa Chesa
As Nigeria joins the rest of the world to mark the 2024 International Women’s Day (IWD), the Vice President, Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), North Cenral Zone, Comrade Chizoba Ogbeche, has tasked state governors in the North-Central, as well as the Minister of the FCT, to invest more in women to accelerate progress towards protection of the rights of women and gender parity.
The Vice President, in a press statement on Thursday in Abuja, said the charge was in line with the United Nations theme for this year’s celebrations: “Count Her In: Invest in Women. Accelerate Progress.”
Ogbeche noted that women’s economic empowerment, especially in the face of worsening economic situation in the country, was a sure route towards accelerating the achievement of gender equity.
According to her, “There is an urgent need for the governors of the North-Central states and the FCT minister to come up with sustainable social welfare schemes that would prioritise the needs of women, who are the burden bearers in the present economic down turn in the country.
“Deliberate and comprehensive efforts are needed in strengthening institutional frameworks and existing laws that gurantee women of the right to enjoy decent standard of living, food security, and nutrition, housing, quality healthcare and education.”
She recalled that the African Union Ministers responsible for Gender and Women’s Affairs at a consultative meeting in preparation for the 68th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW68), on November 14, 2023 focused on the priority theme: “Accelerating the Achievement of Gender Equality and the Empowerment of all Women and Girls by Addressing Poverty and Strengthening Institutions and Financing with a Gender Perspective.”
The meeting was aimed at building consensus on strategies and actions for ensuring that African women and girls were not left behind by development policies, processes and institutions aiming to eradicate poverty, reform the financial system and strengthen development institutions.
The meeting harped on the fact that poverty and inequality required deliberate and systematic social, political, and economic policies and measures, by governments and all other stakeholders.
“Women’s poverty can be understood as a process of deprivation and depletion shaped by structural inequalities in the household, labour market, and state institutions, and exacerbated by women’s experience of compounded
discrimination.
“It deprives women of the right to enjoy a decent standard of living, food security and nutrition, housing, quality healthcare and education. The disproportionate amount of care and domestic work performed by women limits their time, access to decent work, quality education and health care.
“This deprivation can also be seen in women’s unequal access to land and productive assets, finance, and in the restriction of their ability to participate fully and meaningfully and be included in policy decision making processes, including on issues of financing,” communique at the end of the meeting declared.
While pointing out that collective action is needed to make the IWD impactful, she tasked the leadership of the Association in the North-Central to endeavour to organise activities, especially sensitisation and enlightenment campaigns, to mark the Day.
