Gender bill to bring development to men, women -UN specialist
UN Women Programme’s Specialist Peter Mancha, says the reconsideration of the gender bill would yield the much desired development in Nigeria.
Mancha said disposing the bill was not in the interest of the country, adding Rwanda has proven as worthy example where equal opportunity works.
He made this disclosure on Wednesday United Nations Women programme on women, peace and security in Nigeria (phase II), with funding from Norwegian Embassy.
The Specialist revealed that was required would be to refocus the direction of lawmakers to see the essence of the bills.
He said, “With regards to the five gender bills thrown out by the National Assembly, is actually not a good development, the bill will bring development to both men and women. Inclusive trend is when you want to see meaningful development as we see in Rwanda, so throwing that bill is not in the interest of development.
“We need to go to the drawing board to see how these legislators can have a different perspective in terms of knowing how important the bills are in mitigating or reducing gender parity that exists in Nigeria.”
Commenting on the influence of society to what transpired in the National Assembly, the Programme’s Specialist stressed that it was a reflection of what is obtainable describing the patriarchal setting.
“To add, that the action of the legislators is a reflection of the wider society. We live in a patriarchal society where an average Nigerian man doesn’t believe that women have roles to play when it comes to governance and decision making. These legislators are coming from the society, they grew up from there and it indicates that the women have a bigger work to do. Starting from immediate family, extended down to the society,” he said.
Mancha maintained that there was need for reorientation beginning from the family, where the issue of gender parity would be emphasised as one with overwhelming impact.
According to him, “We need to start changing the mindset of our children who will be leaders for the male child to see the female child as an equal partner and they will grow up to live in it but when you grow in a society where you are meant to believe the female child is inferior to you it becomes a challenge. So, there should be more awareness into gender parity for people to know that it brings development.”
Also Speaking, Olubukola Ademola-Adelehin National consultant for UN women, said the second phase of the organisation would help Women Affairs ministry in strengthening its State Action Plan, “to know if we need to review it, invest into making sure the action plan is implemented, we will also work with women affairs to strengthen their capacity.
“We will be doing a lot of legislative capacity building, Gombe State is relatively peaceful, stable but we know that even when there is peace we need to consolidate it, by watering the plant of peace,” she said.
