UN Women Seek Action Against Electoral Gender-based Violence

United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also known as UN Women, has underscored the promotion of women’s empowerment in Nigeria’s political sector and the need to tackle electoral gender-based violence in the country.

This was disclosed at a conference in Abuja, recently.

According to UN Women statistics, Nigeria has one of the highest levels of gender-based violence in the region. Violence such as mental and sexual assault on women, lack of access to education, civic engagement and political involvement, has had a devastating impact on the lives and rights of women across Nigeria.

The event took a stock of electoral gender-based violence and assessed the challenges of reporting and collection of data during elections to inform future actions and interventions and promote coordination through the national summary report on violence against women in 2023 elections.

The UN Women country representative to Nigeria and ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West Africa State), Mrs Beatrice Eyong urged Member Nations to take concrete measures to create a safe and enabling environment for women to engage in public life, and ensure that those responsible for violations and abuses against women are promptly brought to justice.

While the event took a great turn, representatives from different National organizations that were deployed to monitor the electoral gender-based violence during the election, presented their observations and reports on violence against women in the 2023 elections. At the course of the presentation, a representative from Kwara State, reported violation of women’s rights during the election in the state, while speaking, she recalled that a female political aspirant was forced to step down for her male counterpart despite the fact that she was not defeated. She further said that more needs to be done to ensure that parties put measures in places to ensure women’s rights are not violated.

The conference witnessed a fervent call to action, igniting hope for change and amplifying the voices of those advocating for women’s empowerment and gender equality in Nigerian politics. The pressing need to address gender-based violence resonated throughout the discussions, and participants expressed a collective commitment to drive tangible reforms that would combat these deeply entrenched issues.