The National Women Commission of the Nigeria Labour Congress NLC has held its fifth National Gender Conference in Abuja.
Participation, which is both virtual and physical, also saw the emergence of a new executive to run the affairs of the Commission for the next four years.
At the conference, the place of the woman in the home and nation-building was again stressed.
The theme of the conference, “Women in Leadership: Towards Achieving Equal Opportunities for All in a COVID-19 World: The Nigeria Situation”, resonated the need for the emancipation of women from perceived domination by the men folks.
Declaring open the conference, NLC President Ayuba Wabba, said that women must be given their rightful place in the country.
He urged the government and leaders at all levels to make the education of women and the girl child a top priority adding that economic empowerment of the female gender is empowering the whole family and the nation at large.
He believes that the government should not limit empowerment only to business saying that women need to be empowered and deliberate efforts made towards a special program to empower women.
According to him, “this is because ones the woman is empowered economically, the whole family will also be empowered and children and youth will then be sent to school.
“Therefore, I think this is a good investment, so I advocate that the Ministry of Humanities Affairs should have a special program, targeted at women empowerment because when you empower one woman, you empower a society.”
Chairperson, NLC National Women Commission, Comrade Mercy Okezie, called for positive steps to place the issue of gender equality in peoples’ consciousness and on the front burner of all labour activities and campaigns.
She said authorities concerned must have a deeper reflection especially on the health and safety of women in the face of COVID-19.
“There is the urgent need to further discuss and adopt measures to protect women’s rights, uphold respect the dignity of all workers in this very difficult time”, she said.
Okezie also called on men to support women’s political ambition into leadership positions, promote gender audit and involvement of women in all activities that would further their livelihood.
According to her, positive steps should be placed on the issue of gender equality in people’s consciousness and on the front burner of all labour activities and campaigns.
She commended the NLC for its support to women and deliberate gender alertness in all its distributions and programmes adding that affiliate unions and other organizations should emulate the positive virtues of the NLC as the voice of change.
She recommended that male champions should be used to change their mind-sets by engaging males in the fight for women’s right.
“Promote and support women’s election into leadership positions.
“Promote gender audit and involvement of women in all activities.
“Recruit, mobilize more women members and negotiate for the inclusion of gender issues in collective bargaining agreements and condition of services and educate and train more women and youth on trade unionism, human right and working-class consciousness”, she said.
Also, the Country Director, ActionAid Nigeria, Mrs Ene Obi, said women voices needed to amplify in the creation of laws that enable the society to live with the COVID-19 pandemic.
She recommended that there was a need for more advocacies for women to have more seats at the table, to increase the number of women in the decision-making process.
Obi also called for a revision of the provision of the Nigeria laws to protect nursing mothers from losing their jobs.
Also speaking, the Acting Director, ILO Country Office, Mr David Dorkenoo, noted that COVID- 19 has either deepened or exacerbated the existing inequalities between women and men in almost all areas of life.
He said that this has been documented in many studies carried out in the past year by different institutions.
“To address the inequalities especially in the world of work, the importance of the role of the ILO tripartite partners cannot be overemphasised.
“The ILO tripartite constituents can make a vital contribution to promote gender equality through inclusive policy-making as well as gender inclusiveness representation in policymaking.
“Tripartite constituents need to see greater role for stronger universal and sustainable social protection policies, investment in supporting families with care work, advocating women as leaders.
“They should also ensure the dignity and safety of women and men in the labour market for better present and future times”, he said.
Zainab Sa’id
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