A lecturer at the Rivers State University, Prof. Godwin Okon, has called on media outfits to promote the implementation of gender equality and accord prominence to women who have made giant strides in Nigeria’s media space and other organisations.
He made the appeal on Friday at a one-day training workshop organised by a Non-Governmental Organisation, Step-Up Women In Journalism Initiative (SWIJ) in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Okon, who spoke on the topic, “Facilitating the implementation of gender policies within newsrooms and organisations,” said that gender issues had dominated national and international discourse for decades.
He argued that many women have made an impact in the media space and other professions though not celebrated, but the truth remains that their impact reverberates and resonates.
He urged women professionals to be visible and make their voices heard to break stereotypes and barriers across all sectors.
He appealed to the Federal Government to implement the Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG) to enable the country to achieve the global vision.
Okon said that the gender notions had further been animated by the mainstreaming of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and the Sustainable Development Goals 5 (SDG), as not just vision for the Third World countries but a vision for the entire globe.
He said that one of the challenges against achieving SDG5 was putting into practice ideologies and recommendations on how to actualise the goals.
“Not minding the fact that awareness on the subject matter was widespread, gender stereotypes still abound and may serve as an impediment to the global vision.”
He commended the World Health Organisation’s focus on gender characteristics of women, men, girls and boys as well as relationships with each other.
According to him, constructs on gender are socio-culturally determined and vary from one society to another, which makes gender and stereotypes go hand in glove.
Okon listed the 12 driving factors for the global vision for gender equality as women and poverty, educational training of women, women and health, violence against women, and human rights of women and girl child, among others.
He called on the Federal Government to fully implement the National Policy for Gender Equality for 35 per cent affirmative action, which was launched in the country in 2006 and demanded women’s inclusiveness in governance and allied processes without discrimination.
He commended the Rivers State Government for positioning women as deputies and vice chairpersons in governance, saying that women can do better as governors and managers of institutions.
Earlier, Mrs Ann Godwin, the Executive Director of SWIJ, described the training theme, “Implementation of gender policies and capacity building for female journalists”, as apt.
Godwin said that the training was supported by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism(WSCIJ), under its Report Women Programme, and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
She said that women had not been able to achieve much in terms of 35 per cent affirmative action due to the delay in the passage of the gender bill by the Senate.
She further expressed the hope that the 10th Assembly would pass the bill.
