NAN-H-1
Security
By Martha Agas
Jos, Nov. 25, 2016 (NAN) The Small-scale Women Farmers Organisation in Nigeria (SWOFON) on Friday called for the security of women while working on their farmlands especially in rural communities to guarantee food security.
Mary Afan, the Plateau Coordinator of SWOFON told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Jos that women farmers in rural areas in the state are being attacked in their farmlands and either killed or raped.
She spoke in commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women with the theme ‘Orange the World: Raise Money to End Violence Against Women and Girls’.
Afan said that the organisation has made advocacy visits to the State Government on measures to protect the lives of women while getting their sources of livelihood.
She said the increase in prices of food items experienced in the state was traceable to the withdrawal of women from the farms due to insecurity.
“It is because many women are attacked and killed while on the way to their farmlands and also while working on their farms with their children that we are experiencing the hike in food prices in the state.
“Some of these traumatic experiences have made many women to farm at their backyards instead of going to their farmlands,’’ she said.
She said that the women constitutes 80 per cent of the labour force in the farming sector of the country and must therefore be given adequate security.
The Day is an annual event to proffer preventive measures against women violence experienced by every one out of three women globally in their lifetime. (NAN)
MAA/ECN/IS
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Edited by Emmanuel Nwoye/Ismail Abdulaziz