11th March, 2013
Last Friday, the world celebrated the annual International Women’s Day, IWD. It is a day set aside to honour womanhood. From major world capitals to local communities, women and men sympathetic to the cause of the female folk gathered to examine, analyse as well as find solutions to problems of women. The theme for this year’ celebration, “Gender Agenda: Gaining Momentum” was very instructive. As signatory to the United Nations charter on Women, Nigerian women participated actively in commemorating this day, with muted ceremonies holding here and there.
It was an occasion to reflect on the plight of women. And issues affecting women in the country are legion. Each gender-based report puts women at the receiving end of every problem bedeviling the country- hunger, war, terrorism, epidemics etc. Maternal health is still nagging. Due to poor health facilities, many women die in the process of child birth. In an economy where many people live under a dollar per day, malnutrition is the lot women, many of who single-handedly cater for their families.
The greatest threat to the sanctity of womanhood is rape. Many women have become sex objects for unscrupulous men. Where they are not satisfied with harassing women sexually, they defile infants recklessly. It is worse that because of stigmatization, many of such cases never get reported. The bestiality displayed by these elements adversely affects women in many ways. For instance, the ratio of HIV/AIDS infection is high in women. Some reports say victims of rape contract the virus from rapists. Besides getting infected, unwanted pregnancies are negative by-products of rape in some cases. This is responsible for the sizeable proportion of single-motherhood in the society.
Nigerian women are confronted by the damaging effects of genital organ mutilation and the vagina fistula infection. Many primitive communities still indulge in cultural practices that like remove parts of maidens’ genital organs based on the assumption that such parts inhibit effective sex life. Even though scientific research has found that such postulations are spurious, the practice in many Nigerian communities has not changed. This perhaps explains why cases of fistula are rampant. This is mainly because the people in such areas are permanently unaware of the havoc they wreak on their wives or daughters as they grow older.
Politically, Nigerian women are deprived. Past administrations and the current one at the federal level always mouth their desire to implement the Beijing Declaring of Rights which required that 30 percent of leadership position be allocated to women. Although President Goodluck Jonathan has appointed some women into key positions in his government, the number falls below the required ratio. The inequality in the distribution of political power implies that women remain perpetually subjugated by the men. And where they are educated, it is believed that such education barely ends in the kitchen, where they work as housewives. In many places, the population of boys in school outnumbers that of girls. While the boys receive education, the girl-child is made to carry out domestic chores, hawk wares and support the family’s income. Without knowing it, this compounds our problems by the sheer mass of illiterate population that we churn out of this neglect. This does not only affect women, it stalls our progress as a nation.
Frightening as the problems may appear, life can still be made meaningful for the Nigerian women. The greatest asset to bequeath to them is education. We believe that free and compulsory education for girls and adult women will help them understand themselves. Basic health facilities must be made available to communities. Emphasis should be placed on maternal health. Ante-natal and post natal health should be given serious considerations so to trim down the number of birth-related deaths in the country. Such facilities should also be extended to cater for victims of rape. Security agencies should ensure that rapists are punished severely to serve as deterrent to others. The public must be discouraged from stigmatizing rape victims, but rather encourage them to seek medical help. This could help checkmate the aftermath of rape.
We advocate that women be accorded a special place in this participatory democracy. Nigerian women should not only be used as entertainment objects during political campaigns. They should be encouraged to mount the rostrum, seek office and contribute their quota to nation building. Choice positions of responsibility should be given to women as part of effort towards getting the best out of them. In the past women struggled for Nigeria’s independence or achieved some heroic feats. Names like Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Chief Margaret Ekpo, Queen Amina of Zazzau and many others are replete and attest to the dexterity of our women. Among theses, there are many more out there who need to be encouraged. By doing this, we can use the IWD to truly celebrate our women not to lament their deplorable condition in Nigeria.