NAN-HG-12
Women
By Rabiu Sani Ali
Hadejia (Jigawa), Nov. 7, 2016 (NAN) A social activist, Hajiya Maimuna Yakubu, has advised husbands to support efforts at empowering their wives for the improvement of their socio-economic lives.
Yakubu gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Hadejia, Jigawa.
She stated that the call is important as it is aimed at improving the economic status of mothers and check domestic abuse as well as encourage easy access to family healthcare.
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“A lot of the challenges we have in social development when you come to the issue of reproductive health, access to justice, access to services, where we have high maternal mortality rate and we have high illiteracy level in our community, is because the woman is not
empowered.
“And research has shown that women that women that are educated and have some means of livelihood take charge of their lives irrespective of whether their husbands support them or not.
“And by the time you empower a woman; you are going to empower the whole family because she going to transfer that skill to her children.’’
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Yakubu lamented the low level of empowerment among rural women in especially the northern parts of the country.
She attributed the trend to lack of support from the men.
According to her, it is unfortunate that some men have failed to support their wives in uplifting the living standard of their families.
She stated that it is situations such as this that exposes a lot of to poverty, abuse and disparity.
Yakubu, therefore, stressed the need for comprehensive advocacy to create awareness and promote attitudinal change as well as mobilise women to participate fully in women empowerment programmes at the grassroots.
According to her, development organisations in collaboration with federal and state governments have initiated various programmes aimed at encouraging women empowerment.
She then urged husbands to allow their women to participate in such programmes.
“The appeal we are always making is for men to allow their women to access services, to get skills that will translate into income generation and also to allow them use those skills to actualise her dreams.
“A lot of us have dreams, but because of the tradition and the fact that some people hide behind religion, they stop their wives from being productive in the community.’’ (NAN)
RSA/LAB/YEE
Edited by Lydia Beshel/Emmanuel Yashim
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