Lagos Lawyer and human rights activist, Mrs Funmi Falana, has said all machineries are set to ensure that women are adequately represented in the coming political dispensation in line with the court order which granted a 35 per cent representations in political appointments in the country.
Speaking at a program organised by Women Empowerment and Legal Aid (WELA) to mark this year International Women’s Day in Lagos, Falana said, women are not having a fair share in the polity, adding that all programs towards achieving a robust political participation by women are met with brick walls.
This year theme for the International Women’s Day is: “DigitALL: Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality”, which is designed to enable women play fair roles in technological development of the world.
This year’s celebration of the international day by WELA unlike the previous ones was marked with special packages ranging from entertainment, educative and informative programs, where students of WELA empowerment center in Agege, Lagos did a lot of performances to make the day unforgettable one.
Representatives of the Bar particularly female lawyers led by the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, 3rd Vice Chairman, Mandy Asagba also included some members of the African Women Lawyers Association, AWLA.
In her welcome address, Mrs Falana said God created men and women to be equal, whereby He ensures that the rights of a woman and a man should be equal.
Mrs Falana who was speaking on the International Women’s Day, said the day was set aside to celebrate women across the world. According to her, mewomen are being oppressed not only in Africa but in some other parts of the world.
She also maintained and argued that notwithstanding sex differences, every human being is same and that none must be discriminated against in whatever forms.
Speaking on the activities of WELA, the human rights activist said WELA was established purposely to improve the lives of women and girl child, protecting their interest particularly the survivors of gender violence.
“We champion the course of our women and girl child while empowering our women, especially those that are victims of abuse. We equally engage in rehabilitating the survivors of abuse and empowering them.”
She noted that celebrating women on international Women day goes beyond speech making but how to improve the lives of the women and protecting the rights of the girl child.
She said that over 180 students have been trained at WELA on different vocations which will make them independent.
“We have adequate equipments to train our students. We give our support without bias for religion or where you come from. We are happy seeing the students doing well after living WELA institute.”
“We make sure that each of our student are well behaved and learn entrepreneur on how to handle their business in future.”
Some of the students who entertained the audience with different programs demonstrated in play drama what constitutes the ills of the society and how it can be curbed.
They emphasized that every country has history of women oppression but educating girls child should be made compulsory to curb such oppression.
The students called for the abolition of child marriage to allow the girl child to pursue higher education and fulfill their life ambition.
They praised WELA which they argued has done so much to help women through Mrs Funmi Falana in training, empowerment and provision of legal aids for the less privileged.
The students said WELA has provided legal support for over 2000 people whose rights have been violated.
