EKITI State Governor’s Erelu Bisi Fayemi has lamented that millions of women and girls suffer from poverty, lack of access to basic resources, disease, violent conflict and the complex use of culture, religion and tradition to render women voiceless.
The first Lady stated this yesterday while delivering a lecture at the 2019 Biennial Conference with theme: “Gender and the actualisation of the SDGs: The African experience” at the Centre for Gender and Social Policy Studies (CGSPS) Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State.
Mrs. Fayemi said Nigeria features poorly on most global indicators measuring Gender equality and women’s empowerment (GEWE).
She added that the 2014 World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report rated Nigeria 118/177, while in 2015, Nigeria was rated 158/177 by the World Bank Gender Equality Measure Report.
Nigeria, she added, is ranked as one of the 20 worst countries in the world for women alongside Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and other countries usually associated with a very low status for women.
“Not only did Nigeria not meet any of the original Millennium Development Goals, if care is not taken, we might not meet most of the SDG goals in 2030 either,” she said.
She lamented that whereas almost like CEDAW and the African Women’s Protocol, these instruments have not been domesticated, a situation which she said continued to lead to the undermining of the rights of women and girls.
She explained that the national and state gender machineries in the country were grossly under-resourced, thereby making it difficult for them to coordinate and implement effective gender mainstreaming policies.
She also noted that the level of insecurity in the Northeast region of the country and incessant kidnapping of children and young girls have serious implications on the future of the country.
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