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| Nigerian Women and Nigeria's abysmal program on the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) |
 PRINTABLE VERSION |
It was Olympe de Gouges, the renowned French writer, who affirmed with a tone of finality in his seminal oeuvre DÈclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne that "la femme naÓt libre et demeure Ègale ‡ l’homme en droits. Les distinctions socials ne peuvent Ítre fondÈes que sur l’utilitÈ commune" (woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights. The social distinctions can only be based on mutual usefulness). Twin-issues of gender inequality and women liberation which Olympe de Gouges essayed to lay to rest in his book, once again reverberated across the world as another international Women’s Day came by.
The day March 8 was set aside in 1977 by the United Nations’ General Assembly through a resolution, proclaiming it as the UN Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace. The purpose of this day is to recognise the fact that securing peace and social progress and the full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms require the active participation, equality and development of women to the strengthening of international peace and security. For the women of the world, the symbolism of International Women’s Day has a wider meaning as it is seen as an occasion to review how far women have come in their struggle for equality, peace and development. It is also an opportunity to unite, network and mobilise for meaningful change.
Through the years, the idea behind the observance of this day has run on the inevitable wheels of time and now presently finds its true expression in the September 2000 Millennium
Declaration by world leaders. This declaration distils the key goals and targets agreed at major international conferences and world summits in the 80s/90s and drew up a set of eight Millennium Development Goals with associated targets and indicators that by the year 2015, all 191 UN Member States must meet. The MDGs, which set a powerful agenda for a global partnership to fight poverty and offered a shared vision of a better world by the year 2015, aim at cutting extreme poverty by half, ensure every child has the chance to go to school and live a long and healthy life, and bring discrimination against women to an end. The risks of dying as a result of childbirth are to be dramatically reduced, deadly diseases brought under control, the environment is better managed and the benefits of progress more equally shared by all nations of the world. Together, the aspirations set out in the MDGs and their associated targets and indicators represent a powerful framework for action.
With the 2015 target year almost half gone, a penetrative gaze into the plight of the Nigerian woman and her counterparts in other parts of the world today will unearth an embarrassing degree of unfulfilled hopes and programmed failures garnished with a tinge of patriarchal laxity and ideological hypocrisy on the part of the women themselves. According to UN statistics, of the 1.3 billion people living in poverty around the world, 70 per cent are women; women do about 66 per cent of the world’s work in return for less than 5 per cent of its income; in the least developed countries, nearly twice as many women over age 11 are illiterate compared to men; two–thirds of children denied primary education are girls and 75 per cent of the world’s 876 million illiterate adults are women; women work two-thirds of the world’s working hours, produce half of the world’s food and yet earn only 10 per cent of the world’s income and own less than 1 per cent of the world’s property.
In Nigeria, with an exceeding number of civil society organisations on gender issues and an intimidating number of top female political appointees ranging from Supreme Court Judge, Ministers, Deputy Governors, Directors-General, and Permanent Secretaries to Ambassadors, poverty still has a woman’s face. Nigerian women are still disproportionately suffering the burden of poverty, reeling heavily under the pangs of hunger with majority of them living on less than one dollar per day! As primary agents of child welfare, they are victims of widespread and persistent discrimination in all areas of life, and put their lives at risk every time they become pregnant. They are still increasingly susceptible to HIV/AIDS and other killer diseases. As unschooled adults, they have less to say socially and politically and to be able to support themselves.
The impact of the activities of our ubiquitous feminine activists and women lib organisations is seemingly feeble as Nigerian women’s rights and access to land, credit and education are still limited not only due to legal discrimination, but because more subtle barriers such as their workload, mobility and low bargaining position in the household and community prevent them from taking advantage of their legal rights. These problems affect their children, and households without a male head are at special risk of impoverishment with no capacity to immunise their children or know how to help them survive.
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حقوق المراة في العراق نجم عبد ضيدان | Nov 24th, 2007
نود اعلامكم بانه لحد الان لايوجد لحقوق للمراة. علما بانه توجد كثير من المنظمات المجتمع المدني النسوية وهذه المنظمات لاتثقف بطريقة صحيحة وانما مجرد اخذ المنح وعدم ايصال صوت المراة المظلومة في العراق وهذا بسبب المانح نفسه لاتوجد الية صحيحة لاختيار المنظمات
راجين من كل الاخيار المساعدة في هذا الجانب
نجم عبد
رئيس الجمعية الثقافية لشباب العراق
009647702625845
asd_bad2001@yahoo.com
http://csiyf.friendsofdemocracy.net/
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