Group Wants 35% Affirmative Action Implemented

A gender based non
governmental organization, Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, has urged all political parties in the country to reflect the 35 per cent affirmative action for women in the constitution of their various offices, ahead of the 2015 general elections.
The Executive Director of the centre Miss Emem Okon made the call during a two-day capacity building training for media personnel on “Reporting Violence Against Women”, organized by the centre in Port Harcourt.
Miss Okon also urged governments at all levels to allocate move seats to women during the forth-coming political dispensation.
She said that the time was ripe for the Nigerian society to end political discrimination against women on account of their gender.
She explained that the training programme was to create awareness on the on-going violence against women, as well as build the capacity of reporters to identify and report violence against women.
In her presentation, the Project Manager of the African Network for Peace Building, Miss Bridget Osakwe, said that violence against women was a manifestation of historical and unequal power relations between men and women.
She noted that a significant number of women in Nigeria is currently undergoing physical and mental trauma as a result of gender induced violence, insisting that, this attitude must stop if the society is to move forward.