Source: All Africa
Early this month, the Ekiti State House of Assembly passed into law a bill prohibiting gender-based violation. The law defines gender-based violation to include acts or threats to commit acts liable to result in physical, sexual, economic and emotional, verbal or psychological abuse.

Others are harassment (including sexual harassment), exploitation and intimidation by inducing fear in another person and all acts of domestic violence perpetrated by intimate partners and family members.

The law also covered harmful traditional practices such as female genital mutilation and widowhood rites, imposition of dress codes under any guise, child marriage and criminalising pregnancy outside marriage.

We commend the Ekiti legislators for bringing this issue to the legal domain away from the miasma of culture and tradition. We also applaud the wife of the governor of the state, Erelu Bisi Fayemi, for galvanising like minds in the Ministry of Women Affairs and the Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) into giving life to this piece of legislation intended to provide protection for people against possible abuse, as well as ensure justice for those that have experienced different forms of gender-based violence.

The relevance of this legislation and the aptness of its timing can better be appreciated in the context of the rising spate of violence induced by gender-based animosity. There are reported cases of rape, sexual harassment and exploitation in the nation's institutions of learning; spouses dying in the hands of their partners; sordid behaviours in the work place where women are often not only considered as sex objects but are actually employed with such anticipation. Trite examples could be found in commercial banks, where impossible targets are set and expected to be met by female marketing staff through the trading of their dignity.

Because of the pertinence of the law, we call on the National Assembly to borrow a leaf from their compatriots in Ekiti State and make this law a national legislation so that the whole country can benefit. The government often forgets that humanitarian laws are as important and purposeful as political laws. They can be a crucial tool for combating the many socio-economic woes facing today's Nigeria.

However, passing the law may not be enough. A law is just a piece of paper if there are no modalities for its implementation and execution. Yet, the implementation of the law depends largely on its workability. Therefore, there is the need to call attention to the aspect that tends to justify illicit sexual behaviours. The society should not by any means encourage pregnancy outside wedlock.

We hope that the significant role carved out for the police and the courts in the new law's implementation would be justified.

• Nigeria