Human Rights of Women
Non-Governmental Organizations have been playing crucial roles in the gender issue in Nigeria. They have been networking, sharing strategies, best practices and lobbying the various levels of governments to encourage them to implement resolutions, treaties and international conventions and agreements on women's rights and the advancement of women and girls.
Some popular ones include the umbrella body of women NGOS in the country, the National Council for Women Societies (NCWS), Women's Right Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA) , Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication Foundation(WOTCLEF) , Market Women Association of Nigeria among others.
According to the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajiya Zainab Maina at an interactive session with Women Focused nongovernmental organizations recently, historically, there has been a strong tradition of grassroots organizations led by women in different parts of Nigeria. "Women have created some of the earliest Civil Society Associations in Nigeria where they have always been influential in matters of local, economic, social and cultural development. We remember that it was the Aba Women's riot of December 1929 that triggered off a series of agitations that eventually led to Nigeria's independence.
Internationally, it was due to the pressure from women's Organizations and the international community especially the UN system that prompted governments to set up projects to address women in development," she explained.
She said the consequence of this was the setting up of special funds to help women access credit to support income generating projects in both rural and urban areas in addition to initiatives to review the legal status and other social and economic rights in line with the convention on Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against women (CEDAW).
The Special Assistant to the President on Gender, Dr. Asmau Abdulkadir, said, "because of the important role NGOs play in advocating and implementing programmes on women's cause, their emergence has helped improve the lives of women."
She called on them not to relent as many women especially in the grassroots are suffering, adding that a particular case in point is the increasing rate of divorce in the Northern part of the country with women at the receiving end.
Maina said the international conferences in addition to pushing for the creation of national machineries for women have fostered partnerships between women's organizations and national gender machineries, adding that the relationship has not stopped women's organizations from resisting specific policies or programmes which have negative effects on women.
She enjoined them to join forces with her ministry to take women empowerment to the next dimension.
She said areas in which the increased activity of women organizations could prove to be useful include efforts to increase the numbers of women in governance following the national gender policy provision of 35% women's participation in governance, strengthening support networks and the capacity for research, and increased women's participation in all key economic institutions and decision making bodies.
She said currently, only 7.6% of the members of the Senate and 5.5% of the House of Representatives are women. "Although having women in parliament and government does not in itself guarantee that policies will address the concerns and needs of women, it is anticipated that the numerical increase in the number of women would be followed by qualitative increase in the power and authority that women are given," she said
The minister said to meet the MDGs for gender equality by 2020, strategic initiatives such as reducing the incidence of harmful traditional practices by 80% by year 2020, establishment of framework for gender responsiveness in all public and private sector policies and programmes, continuously sensitizing rural communities on religious, traditional and cultural barriers to the achievement of women empowerment among others need to be implemented.
The NGOs on their part pledged to continue in all efforts to better the lot of women in the country.