Another Int’l Women’s Day

On March 8 every
year,  programmes  are organised by women groups, Non Government  Organisations (NGOs), government and other gender sensitive bodies to mark the International Women’s Day. The global event which started over a century ago is  seen as an opportunity to celebrate  the achievements of women, while calling for gender  equality.
Two  days to this year’s celebration, questions are being asked about the expedience of the occasion. A senior  colleague who  overheard me  reminding a friend about the upcoming event quickly queried “Every year Una dey celebrate International Women’s Day, wetin una don achieve?
Really, that is a very crucial question. What has been the  benefit of this international  celebration since 1911 when it was first celebrated? What can be  done to make the event have more meaning especially in the lives of ordinary women in our communities? Every year, we trot  out the  same statistics of women who undergo  all kinds of hardship, discrimination, denial on account of their gender.  What efforts are made  to see that these figures change positively  after March 8 celebration?
No doubt, the  awareness created by women all over  the world on this auspicious event  has  helped in bettering the fortunes of  the womenfolk. More access  to education,  reduced discrimination  at work places, more political  and human rights awareness are all fall outs of previous International  Women’s  Day Celebrations. With the likes of Ellen  Johnson Sir leaf of Liberia, Critina  Fernandez of  Argentina, Dilma Rousseff of Brazil,  Park Caeun-hye of South  Korea and many other women all over the world occupying top leadership positions, it can be  argued  that women  are no longer in the dark as far as  politics and governance is concerned.
However,  the enormous challenges still  facing the womenfolk  tend to  diminish these great  strides. In developing countries like Nigeria, rape,  harmful traditional practices,  forced marriages as child brides, sexual abuse by partners or husband, girl child education, sexual  harassment at work places, remain  areas of persisting nightmare. With the growing crime rate, violence and insecurity going on in the country, lives of more women are in danger. Many female citizens like the over 200 students of Government  Secondary School, Chibok, Borno  State who were abducted  from their  school almost one year ago have gory  tales of the insurgency ravaging the country for over three  years now.
Politically, women in Nigeria are still confronted with high level of marginalisation and  discrimination. Women  are still considered good as praise singers and dependable  bloc towards achieving any political  goal but not  good to contest  elective positions. The result is the continued appalling percentage of female  lawmakers both in  the states and the  federal level and other elective positions  of authority. Economically, women  are not doing any better.
It is therefore expected that this year’s International Women’s  Day, will be  used by women both individually and collectively to ponder on all these difficulties facing women and find lasting solutions to them. The event should not end with the usual seminars, road walks, workshops, and others. Rather, women and their male counterparts should be inspired to keep fighting  for a better society for  women and girls long after 8 March.
The various women groups should use this period to draw a roadmap towards  ensuring that policy makers  both  internationally  and locally, recognise the importance of  equality in the law to end all forms of violence and discrimination against omen and girls  through good laws that promote  human rights of women  and girls,  including legal, social, economic, civil  and political equality.
It is also imperative that a key moment like  this should be used to celebrate the unsung heroines in our communities. It should be a time to look inwards and discover  those women who in their quiet ways, have contributed to peaceful development of their communities. That nurse in the village who attends to the health needs of almost  every indigent members of the community, the teacher that goes out of her  way to ensure that as many illiterate women as possible get educated,  should be recognised and awarded.
So, let’s  hope that in line with this year’s theme, “Make It  Happen”,  more  efforts would  be made  towards encouraging women,  eliminating all the obstacles  on the  way,  so that they can be the  best they can.

Calista Ezeaku