Human Rights of Women
Source: Vanguard
Human rights are guaranteed in our constitution. That explains why countries all over the world ratified different conventions and treaties on the issue. These include the United Nations Charter on Human Rights and the African Charter on Human and People's Rights. Nigeria is a signatory to most of these laws. Virtually all of them
have been domesticated.
These rights are guaranteed in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria [As Amended]. They include: the right to life, right to dignity of human person, right to personal liberty, right to fair hearing, right to private and family life, right to freedom from discrimination and right to acquire and own immovable property anywhere in Nigeria.
However, there are clamours in some quarters to treat women's rights as human right. It was one of the positions aggregated by women lawyers and rights crusaders at a seminer in Lagos recently. The gathering, which the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Session on Legal Practice (SLP) facilitated, focused on the reality of women's rights in Nigeria.
The call stemmed from degrading and sub-human experiences women are being subjected to domestically. These include wife-battering, anti-widow practices and disinheritance of women in some cultures.
A champion of this clarion call, the wife of the Governor of Kwara State, Mrs Omolewa Ahmed, argued that women's rights should be observed just like other rights. Failure to do this, she noted, would amount to running on one leg. In the words of Tanzania's former president, the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, the two legs on which any nation should stand and walk or run are her 'manhood and womanhood.
We believe that the rights of women should no longer be toyed with. President Barack Obama, in his recent visit to Kenya, drummed in the imperative of doing away with archaic practices that dehumanise women in Africa, and stressed the need for greater inclusion of women in every aspect of development for greater impact.
The NBA and women lawyers' groups, as well as social advocacy outfits should continue to push the frontiers of reforms to eliminate practices that are repugnant and no longer relevant to society. More efforts should be invested in pro bono services for women whose rights have been violated, especially those who cannot afford the cost of legal representation.
Reform of outdated legislation is important if we are to eradicate harmful practices. We, therefore, applaud the recent Supreme Court ruling upholding the enforcement of women's right to inheritance. It is a major salutary and liberating verdict.
We must proceed to strengthen other existing laws that frown at the infraction of the rights of women in order to give them their rightful place in modern society.