United Nations (UN) Women Representative to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Ms Beatrice Eyong has called on the nation’s media to support women candidates in the forthcoming 2023 general elections by giving them visibility through their publications.
Ms Eyong, who made the call at a quarterly Media Dialogue with Media Executives and Chief Editors on Gender Responsive Reporting held in Lagos at the weekend, also said the UN Women has established a resource centre for Nigerian Women in Politics.
The UN Women Rep said that the resource centre located in Abuja would provide all women interested in politics support to organise and promote their candidature and programmes.
She maintained that there is a need to increase women’s representation in decision-making positions by ensuring that the rights of women and girls are respected as found in the conventions and additional texts and protocols ratified by the government of Nigeria.
The UN Women Rep also thanked the media for inviting some of the women candidates to speak in some media programmes but she maintained a lot still needed to be done to give more women a level playing ground.
She, especially, pointed out that not many people know the only female presidential candidate for the election, saying, “I am sure that many of us here do not even know that there is a female presidential candidate.’’
She, therefore, urged the Nigerian media to use their respective platforms to support women through positive coverage of their activities as the campaigns for the 2023 general elections hot up.
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