By Marie-Therese Nanlong

Women from the 17 local government areas of Plateau State have brought to fore the challenges they face in the society, and fashioned out ways of overcoming them to enable them to contribute to nation-building. 

The women under the auspices of Women4Women He4She community; who assembled in Jos, for a three-day summit to commemorate this year’s International Women’s Day, lamented non access to land for agriculture and other uses; harmful cultural practices, gender inequality; exclusion, and others and reiterated their resolve to break the biases using legitimate means.

In their diverse remarks at the event which was organized in collaboration with the State Ministry of Women Affairs and supported by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, GIZ, the respective speakers sought that women should be educated and enlightened on their rights and privileges as citizens of Nigeria.

The representative of GIZ, Hauwa Mankilik who commended men who support women, stressed that it was not enough for women to point out the challenges they face but they should also proffer solutions to the challenges.

Her words, “We supported the programme because we want to see women participate actively in proffering solutions to the challenges.

“In line with this year’s theme, equality today for a sustainable tomorrow, we urge women to break the bias, identify the constraints they face, and work collectively to overcome them.”

Earlier, the State Coordinator of the group, Jophia Gupar, and the Chairperson of the planning committee, Rhoda Jahota commended the resilience of women despite the challenges they face and insist women should support women to be their best in their respective fields.

The State Commissioner for Women Affairs, Rebecca Sambo urged women to desist from ‘trafficking’ their kids to strange places for manual labour in the guise of seeking help.

A panel of a discussion moderated by Peace Longdet, and featuring the State Commissioner for NGO, Irimiya Werr, Yop Rwang, representing the Attorney-General/Commissioner of Justice; Noel Azai, representing the Commissioner for Lands and Survey and Emmanuel Naandokol, representing the Commissioner for Agriculture spoke extensively on why a significantly low number of women have access to arable lands and proffer solutions to the issues. 

On her part, Nkoyo Toyo who delivered a keynote address via zoom urged the women not to relent in breaking the biases especially as the 2023 general elections approach.

However, a communique issued at the end of the event opined that women’s lack of access to land is “rooted in our cultures where men are viewed as traditional owners of lands and a woman can only own a land through her husband,” but “in the modern constitution of Nigeria, women are allowed to own lands through section 41 of the constitution which allows for citizens of Nigeria to own properties.”

It further stressed that “Women can form themselves into cooperatives and groups, contribute to raise funds and apply for plots of lands in bulk before allocating it to members.”

To break the barrier to access to land, women were reminded that “It is counterproductive to the cause to break bias if women keep purchasing lands and registering in the names of their husbands or male children because they believe women cannot own lands.”