The continued exclusion of women from politics and governance at all levels has been condemned by participants during a training on gender based civic and citizenship education organised recently at Ulakwo in Etche Local Government Area.
The training, which was organised for women of Rivers East Senatorial District by Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development, CEHRD, with support from the Embassy of the Netherlands, Abuja was aimed at spurring women to know their rights and responsibilities as active citizens of the society.
According to the forum, women have the potentials to make the society great if they are involved in governance at all levels. Unfortunately, women have abandoned politics and governance for the men, believing it is men’s affair.
The participants agreed that women hardly contribute to discussions on issues of governance or politics. Even when they manage to join politics, they consign themselves to subservient roles rather than aspiring for leadership positions.
“They are comfortable with women leader position where they mobilise women and share clothing materials and other items to them,” they noted.
Lady Doris Onyeneke, a gender activist who facilitated the training, attributed the apathy of women towards politics to age long gender discrimination and stereotyping which ascribed leadership roles to the men while placing the women in the kitchen.
“Over the years, it became accepted, by both men and women that women have no business with leadership,” she said, adding that women are as well endowe with leadership acumen as the male folks.
‘‘They should therefore begin to unlock their potentials by joining politics or by aspiring for leadership positions,” she said and encouraged women to begin to participate in decisions making that affect their lives at all levels of governance.
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On his part, Styvn Obodoekwe, CEHRD Programme Director, while declaring the training open, stated that women’s apathy towards governance was worrisome.
He said when governance issues are raised, women often behaved as if it does not concern them.
He encouraged women to step out and join politics, saying that as citizens, it was their fundamental human right to participate in governance as they also have the right to associate with political associations of their choice.
Women have been silent for too long and that has given way for bad governance, which unfortunately affect women most,” he said.