Dr Ojobo Atuluku, the Director, Christian Aid International Programmes, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) says the constant push for gender equality by Nigerian women is not because they want to override men.
Atuluku said this in a zoom interview with newsmen as part of activities to mark the 2022 International Women’s Day on Monday.
She said that the theme for 2022 celebration “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”, was a call to break the bias, a call to imagine a gender equal world, free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination.
According to her, gender equality is when people of all genders have equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities.
Atuluku said that the thought of women overriding men had always been the dominant thoughts whenever the issue of gender was raised.
She said that that was what led to the rejection of all women-related bills by the National Assembly in the recent Constitutional amendment.
“This was actually what led to the rejection of the bills including the one that sought to give at least 10 slots to women as ministers and commissioners in federal and states governments,” she said.
Atuluku said that what Nigerian women were after was a legal backing to help them attain some positions politically to curb gender parity.
“If you look at it, the issue of gender equality has nothing to do with women taking over from men. I think that is one of the major fears and one of the things that drives some of the resistance that we see around gender equality.
“When we talk about gender equality, we are talking about equality of rights,we are talking about the fact that women’s rights are also human rights and should be recognised as such.
“Both genders should have equal rights as given under the Constitution and as given under generic human rights,” she said.
Atuluku said that although women played very unique and important role in the society, their place in Nigeria was insignificant.
According to her,there is hardly any respect for women and there is hardly any space for rights of women and there’s a lot of inequality.
Atuluku said women suffered inequality not just in governance but in many other areas like the health sector where the issue of safe motherhood remained a challenge.
“What is happening with safe motherhood, why would any woman die because they are giving birth to a child?
“They are all indicators of the inequality that women face in the society that we need to tackle.’’
Atuluku said that ensuring girl child education had remained a big challenge in Nigeria.
She added that the inability to access even basic education could affect a woman’s children.
This ,she said was because it had been shown that even primary education has a big contributory factor to how a mother took care of her family ,the health and lives of the children.
“So in terms of gender equality in Nigeria, I think there a lot of gaps and we need to really sit up and look at it.”
Atuluku called on all who believed in the development of Nigeria to help women attain their rightful positions in the society to end the justice and inequality that they faced.
Source: News Agency of Nigeria