Cedar Seed Foundation, a disabled women based Non Governmental Organization (NGO) has expressed concerns over the general poor representation of women in governance, lamenting that the situation is worse with women with disabilities in the country.
It’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mrs. Lois Auta, stated this in Abuja during a 2day national consultation on young women in governance and young women with disabilities rights as enshrined in the 1999 constitution, and proposed women fair representation in the elective and appointive positions Bill 2020, organised by the African Young Female Advisers Initiative in partnership with the Foundation.
Auta stated that women with disabilities are asking for 5% affirmative action at all levels of governance, lamenting that women still represent a small minority of elected representatives and political decision makers everywhere.
“We are asking for at least 5% affirmative action for women with disabilities from the 35% affirmative action that women groups are asking for,” she said.
She noted that worldwide, only 24.3% of parliamentarians, 6.6% of heads of state, and 5.2% of heads of government are women, adding that data on political participation of women with disabilities is scarce.
“The limited available data shows an “extremely low” participation and representation of women with disabilities in political leadership roles. It reports that “The representation of women from organizations of persons with disabilities tends also to be low in national coordination mechanisms on disability matters” and that their representation “in national machinery for gender equality is even lower.
“In Nigeria, women with disabilities participation in politics is at zero level. We need to do more to achieve disability inclusion in the political sphere,” she said.
Delivering a paper titled “the constitution and women’s fair representation bill” a Consultant, Barrister Funke Weke, stated that Nigeria is currently amongst countries with the lowest rate of women representation in parliament across the world ranking 186 out of 193 countries of the world.
Weke noted that from colonial times, constitution making in Nigeria has always excluded female legitimacy, adding that there is no sufficient legal framework that encourages Political participation of women with disabilities even though the disability act has been passed.
Earlier, the coordinator, Africa Young Female Advisers Initiative Abiodun Essiet, noted that all women face the same challenges in politics, urging women with Disabilities to rather think about strategy that address the general needs of the people.
“Disability movement should be gender sensitive and Inclusive, when you speak out your needs will be addressed as women with disability as people who have right to participation,” she stressed.
