The Women’s Situation Room Nigeria (WSRN) has called on political parties and all Nigerians to stop every form of violence against female politicians.
The assistant program officer, Alhassan Felicia, made the call yesterday at the training of journalists on ‘Effective Media Sensitive Reporting and Strengthening Understanding of the Dynamics of SGBV’ in Kaduna.
The training which was funded by Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) focused on addressing violence against female politicians, garnering support for female political candidates beyond party affiliation, soliciting media support for female candidates and building momentum for women’s active participation in 2023 elections.
The facilitator, Timothy Lawrence from WSRN, called for special protection for female candidates, politicians and voters ahead of the elections.
He maintained that poor political participation of women in politics was one of the most common but often unrecognised forms of violence and discrimination against women, saying it hinders the participation of women in public life and promotes an unhealthy democratic Nigeria without women.
According to him, there are a lot of cases of SGBV, especially violence against women in politics and they go underreported.
“We are trying to encourage those of us from the media to see how far we can go in our reporting, be more deliberate in our reportage especially when it comes to issues affecting our women in politics.
“I encourage women to be more resilience, more dogged not to allow the space only for the male folk, we are coequal, nobody is incapacitated to participate in the electoral process, I call on women to come out en masse and exercise their franchise,” he said.
