IWD:WARDC Charges Governments To Protect Nigerian Women.
Women Advocates Research and Documentation Center (WARDC) has called on governments at all levels to uphold the constitution and protect the lives of Nigerian women.
Co-founder of WARDC, Abiola Akiyode –Afolabi said the Day afforded the organization another opportunity to X-ray the huge gender gap in Nigeria.
She stressed that, for a country where women make up almost 50 percent of the population, there is an unfortunate imbalance in access to opportunities for women.
“In Nigeria’s Senate, there are only 4 women out of 109 senators. In the House of Representatives, the situation is as dire- there are 14 women of 360 representatives. The situation is glaring: there is very poor inclusion of women in politics and governance.
“At State Assemblies, women have only 4.7% of seats overall/ 15 states in Nigeria do not have any woman in parliament. In the 2023 Women, Peace and Security (WPS) report, Nigeria ranked 162 out of 177 countries. This means that Nigeria is the 16th worst country to live in as a woman.”.
She added that the index also showed that Nigeria is one of the 5 countries with the worst Political Violence Targeting Women.
WARDC lamented that despite the passage of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act (2015), Sexual and Gender based Violence has been on the increase in Nigeria,
“The statistics on Gender – based Violence, which include physical, mental, economic abuse is startling. Nigeria has approximately 20 million survivors, representing 10% of survivors worldwide.
“Nigeria also has the 3rd highest incidence of Female Genital Mutilation worldwide. There is an urgent need to drop these numbers.
“We condemned the inability of the government to protect citizens of Nigeria. With continued conflict in Nigeria, women and girls remain at the brunt of the crisis. Women and girls are violated and turned to sex slaved by bandits.
“We call on the government to immediately rise up to the occasion and end the long-standing conflicts in Nigeria. Women in and out of IDP camps must be protected from all forms of violations and inhumane treatments.