Don Lists Barriers To Women Empowerment

An economist at the University of Benin, Prof. Christiana Okojie , has said that low paid jobs and unpaid work done by women are challenges to women’s economic empowerment.

Okojie told Our Correspondent in last  Thursday that most of the work done by women were not regarded as work but as “role playing’’.

Okojie said that this notion deprives women the time to make use of their resources and skills for economic gain and benefit to the nation.

“The biggest problem against women empowerment is that most of the works that they do are not recognised at home, they are not treated as work.

“All the unpaid work that women are doing in the household, farms, markets, working as junior partners with their husbands, the society does not see them as work; it sees them as performing women’s roles.

“If anything has to change in the society, women must be seen as contributors to the country’s Gross Domestic Product,” Okojie said.

She said women economic empowerment was the most important factor for gender equality and urged women to rise up to take the task of empowerment in their hands.

Okojie also said that women could be empowered by having control over income, access to and control of family resources, access to employment, ownership of land, representation in high-paying jobs, among others.

She said it was important for women to be continually educated; considering that education was an important determinant of access to wage employment and income.

Okojie said empowerment for women would enable them to contribute to their families, societies and national economies.

“It makes good business sense when women have the skills and opportunities to utilise them, they can contribute to growth of business and markets.

“Since women make up the majority of the world’s poor, women’s economic empowerment is essential if poverty reduction goals are to be achieved,” she said

Okojie said that there was a need for stakeholders to increase women’s access to property rights by adopting gender perspectives in all issues as a way of promoting women empowerment.

Okojie said the UN was at the forefront for global commitment on women and urged the Federal Government to domesticate the relevant conventions that it had signed.