By Gabriel Ewepu, Abuja

WITH less than 24 hours to commemorate 2023 International Women’s Day, an international development partner and nonprofit making organisation, ActionAid Nigeria, AAN, Tuesday, demanded women inclusivity in digital space to boost national economy and development.

Speaking with Vanguard on the need for women to be brought into mainstream digital operations in all sectors of the economy, the Programme Manager, Women’s Rights Unit, AAN, Niri Goyit, said it imperative at this point with 2023 International Women’s Day celebration for all actors innovatively include women as far as gender equality is concerned.

Goyit who spoke passionately about the importance of technology also lamented that the cashless policy is welcomed but women are worst hit at the moment, especially women traders who are not digitally inclined nor were enlightened before the policy came up heavily recently and women traders are in limbo as their businesses are hard hit.

She said: “For the International Women’s Day coming up on the 8 of March, the theme is, ‘DigitalAll: Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality’. So, this particular International Women’s Day all actors are expected to look at ways whereby they can innovatively include women because when you talk about gender equality, you will talk about women and men working together. So in terms of technology, how can women be carried along in these spaces?

“We have a lot going on. For instance, this cashless policy they just started recently, female traders are the ones suffering the most.

“So we want to see how the average woman on the street can be technologically aware and also participate in the use of these ICTs whether it is mobile banking, or E-banking, how can they also be carried along?

“How can the government make some of these facilities accessible to women? Because a lot of women are daily income earners, and many women that sell foodstuff have made losses within this period.

Meanwhile, she also called on the 10th National Assembly to make it a priority by revisiting and passing about five gender based bills that were thrown out by the outgoing 9th National Assembly in order to give women more space in the political process towards rapid national development.

According to her, the United Nations has said countries that hardly or never get to develop are people who have not prioritized the development and the participation of women.

“If women make up 50 per cent averagely of a country’s population like Nigeria and they are not empowered they have been validated, they don’t participate it will take that nation, in fact, according to gender gap report, it will take Nigeria another 200 plus years to see development because women are drivers of change and development.

“So in a place where women are not empowered communities where women are not empowered, they remain in poverty for a very long time.

“In terms of the incoming government, we were advocating for the five gender bills that were kicked out by the outgoing National Assembly. I am sure this incoming National Assembly, we are going to be representing the same bills, because these laws are saying that women should have a good representation in the house, women should talk for women.

“Men cannot talk for women. So if we go about how the politics is being run right now, women can hardly get it because women do not have the resources men have to contest for election.

“You have a lot of politicians that are going for election having to spend N500 million, billions of Naira, how many women can afford that?”

“And Nigeria’s election is such that it is money oriented, even for a loan, how many women can afford that even if you have the capital of competent women?

“What are these laws talking about? One of the laws says that women should be given 1/3 of the 111 seats in the National Assembly that should be reserved for only women to contest for them across all the senatorial districts so that the voices of women can be heard.”

She further stated that, “Countries like Rwanda learned the hard way. Rwanda now has the highest number of female representation in parliament, and that was because they went through genocide, which they now realized that the female gender has a role; men have their strength and women also have their strength.

“Women are compassionate, nurturing, intuition, peace builders, these are attributes that are needed in governance if it is not incorporated in either national governance, all cadres of leadership and development the country is being robbed of these attributes that it needs to move forward.

“So women have a role to play that Nigeria does not recognize and give women their space to participate and have a voice on national issues. We are issues of insecurity, we are issues of corruption.

“We need women to be brought to the table to participate in these things. So these are some of the issues that we engage in with the next government. Yes, we need women in the health, finance sector and others. Men and women are equal partners when it comes to the development of a nation.”

While appraising how Nigerian women and children had fared under the Buhari administration, she (Goyit) commended the impact made by the Minister of Women Affairs, Dame Pauline Tallen, for championing the course of women and girls including children and also ensuring the Violent Against Persons Prohibition, VAPP, Act, Child Rights Act, are implemented across the States.

And that she (Tallen) personally led protest against gender based violence during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, where rape cases were rampart.

“However, I must commend the efforts of the Minister of Women Affairs, Dame Pauline Tallen, she is someone who is a gender activist. She is someone who has empowered herself with women’s rights.

“She has been able to take women and girls rights in Nigeria to another level. Like during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, when there were massive reports of rape cases across the country.

“She led a protest and march for the demand for rape to be declared as an issue for state of emergency and she paid advocacy to all the governors of the 36 States and other strategic leaders that they do something about the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Law.

“A state of emergency was declared on the issue of rape, over 20 Sexual Assault Referral Centers, SARC, were established.

“The VAPP Law has been passed in about 34 States in Nigeria, Child’s Rights law because this woman has been working and supporting development partners, civil society organizations they’ve been working hand in hand to see that the framework, the policies of women and girls, so this I must give to the Buhari-led administration because of the efforts of the Minister Of Women Affairs.”

However, the gender activist decried violence against women politicians, especially in the recent 2023 general elections, “We have seen and heard stories of women who were intimidated. For instance, the Labor Party women leader in Kaduna State was killed.

“We also had in the last election season, the PDP women leader was killed in Kogi State, why were they killed? For active participation in politics. So if the space keeps being toxic and he’s boxing women they will remain relegated in the political space.”