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Friday, 21 November, 2008 01:33 pm
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| Discrimination And Violence Against Women: Matters Arising |
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| Written by James-Wisdom Abhulimen | ||||||
| Monday, 26 May 2008 | ||||||
     Sadly, in virtually all societies and spheres of activity, women are still being subjected to inequalities in law and in reality. This situation is both caused and exacerbated by the existence of discrimination in the family, in the community and in the workplace. While causes and consequences may vary from community to community, discrimination against women is widespread. It is perpetuated and strengthened by the survival of stereotypes and of traditional, cultural and religious practices and beliefs detrimental to women. Recent efforts to document the real situation women are facing worldwide have produced some alarming statistics on the economic and social gaps between women and the men. Women are the majority of the world's poor and the number of women living in rural poverty has increased by 50% since 1975. Women constitute the majority of the world's illiterate. The number rose from 543 million to 597 million between 1970 and 1985. Women in Asia and Africa work 13 hours a week more than men and are mostly unpaid. Worldwide, women earn 30 to 40% less than men for doing equal work. Women hold between 10 and 20 per cent of managerial and administrative jobs worldwide and less than 20 per cent of jobs in manufacturing. Women make up less than 5% of the world's heads of State. Women's unpaid housework and family labour, if counted as productive output in national accounts, would increase measures of global output by 25 to 30%. Thus, millions of women throughout the world live in undignified conditions in which they are deprived of their basic human rights for no other reason than their gender. Abuses against women are relentless, systematic, and widely tolerated, if not explicitly condoned. Violence and discrimination against women are global social epidemics. We live in a world in which women do not have basic control over what happens to their bodies. Millions of women and girls are forced to marry and have sex with men they do not desire. Husbands and other male family members obstruct or dictate women's access to reproductive health care. Doctors and government officials disproportionately target women from disadvantaged or marginalized communities for coercive family planning policies. As a part of the efforts to address the problem, the International Bill of Human Rights laid down a comprehensive set of rights to which all persons, including women, are entitled. Despite the existence of these instruments, women still did not have equal rights with men as discrimination against them continued to persist in every society. This led to the adoption of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), an additional means of protecting the human rights of women. The Convention was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1979 to reinforce the provisions of existing international instruments designed to combat the continuing discrimination against women. It identifies many specific areas where there has been notorious discrimination against women, for example, in regard to political rights, marriage, the family and employment. In these and other areas, the Convention spells out specific goals and measures that are to be taken to facilitate the creation of a global society in which women enjoy full equality with the men and thus achieve full realization of their guaranteed human rights. To combat gender-based discrimination against women, the Convention requires State-parties to recognize the important economic and social contribution of women to the family and to society as a whole. It emphasizes that discrimination will hamper economic growth and prosperity. It also expressly recognizes the need for a change in attitudes, through education of both men and women to accept equality of rights and responsibilities and to overcome prejudices and practices based on stereotyped roles. Another important feature of the Convention is its explicit recognition of the goal of actual, in addition to legal equality and of the need for temporary special measures to achieve that goal. LAPO hereby joins voices with the demands of women NGOs in Nigeria for the government to take full responsibility for stopping Violence Against Women (VAW). The Federal Ministry of Justice in particular must meet its duty to address the fact that Federal laws, as it is at the moment, does not conform to Nigeria’s obligations under the UN Convention on the Elimination of Violence against Women (CEDAW) and to take action to end discrimination against women, notably in the judicial system. As a matter of urgency, the federal government should:
Ultimately, the struggle for the upholding of women's human rights must be about making their lives matter everywhere all the time. In practice, this means taking action to stop discrimination and violence against women. A development journalist and member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, James-Wisdom Abhulimen is the head of Information and Advocacy, Lift Above Poverty Organization, LAPO, Benin City. E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it 08038837943, 08074303038  Quote this article on your site | Views: 471 | Print | E-mail
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