National Council for Women Societies (NCWS) has called for campaigns aimed at digitizing women empowerment, especially at the grassroots.
The council made the call at a conference on “Digitisation of Nigeria Women in the 21st Century,” which was also part of activities to mark its national president, Hajiya Lami Adamu Lau’s one year in office.
Adamu, who spoke at the conference, encouraged women to learn technology and also use it.
“We believe that women’s empowerment must go beyond the traditional method of low economic value skills, to creating opportunities for women with relevant and highly demanded digital technology skills,” she said.
According to her, while women in urban areas are catching up with the pace, there is a need for digitization campaigns to be taken to women in the rural areas and in the grassroot.
“We are not only in Abuja, we are in all the States and local governments, so we intend to go down to the grassroot on this digitization education.
“We have gone digital and we will extend it to the grassroot,” Lau added.
Also, Lau lamented the marginalisation of women in politics and especially among the officials and leaders of the parliament.
“We shall relentlessly fight for the passage of our 5 gender bills into law by the national assembly and also stand up and support female parliamentarians returning for the fourth time to become high ranking officers in the House of Representatives. It will be disregarded to Nigeria Women if these experienced female parliamentarians are not among the principal officers in the House of Representatives in the 10th National Assembly.
On her part, the minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, said it was unacceptable that women would sacrifice their time and energy during elections, but are left behind when it’s time to enjoy the dividends of democracy, as according to her, there is less than give percent women representation in government from national to local government level.
She said “ We are appealing to the incoming government to fill in the gap where women have lost out in previous elections.”
Speaking on digital equality and the need for women to be digital literates, the founder, Women of Divine Destiny Initiative, Dr. Nneoma Nkechi Okorocha, said “we must ensure that women have the opportunity to fully participate in the digital economy”.
“It is crucial to advancing gender equality and promoting inclusive economic growth. We will not sit down and watch women be digital illiterates and we will not watch our daughters grow up in a community where they will come to know segregation and discrimination, especially in the areas of artificial intelligence,” Okorocha added.
