By Magnus Effiong
The government of Cross River state and the UN Women have expressed readiness to partner in order to abolish harmful cultural practices against women and to frontally tackle other gender-based issues which had worked against economic emancipation of women in order to entrench a more gender equitable society.
The United Nation entity, which is dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, and the Cross River government mulled the partnership plan during the UN Women and Partners ‘Open Day’ event which held in Calabar.
The Governor, who was represented by his Special Adviser on General Duties, Barr Ekpenyong Akiba, described gender equality as not merely a feminist agenda but a fundamental human right concern, and charged all to come together to ensure that women were given equal opportunities to hold leadership positions and contribute their quota to state and national development.
“I am happy that UN Women and Partners’ interventions are shaping modern day cultures. I congratulate the UN Women for traversing difficult terrains of Cross River state and breaking women free from the shackles of traditional and cultural stereotypes and practices and aligning them to modernity.
“When the women are empowered, every other sector will be empowered. And the example is very evident in Cross River state, because we have very active women in politics holding top leadership positions in government.
“The Commissioners for Sports Development, Humanitarian Affairs, Housing Development, Social Welfare, and Establishment, Training and Pensions, and several other appointees are women. Our administration is very intentional about empowering women to bring the desired impact to the state and country.
“Besides, the First Lady, Rev Mrs Eyoanwan Bassey, through her pet project, Humanity Without Borders, is championing humanitarian causes throughout the state, ranging from child’s right, women empowerment, orientation and capacity building across the state and country,” he submitted.
While re-echoing his delight at the UN Women and partners strides in Cross River, the Governor expressed his administration’s commitment to partner with the organization, and pledged that in the coming local government elections in the state, women would be encouraged and motivated to contest for and hold leadership positions for the entrenchment of a gender-balanced polity.
In her remarks, Ms. Beatrice Eyong, Country Representative to UN Women Nigeria and ECOWAS, lamented that women constitutes only 3.8 percent of elective positions and 16 percent of appointive positions nationally and in the States with 44 million women living under poverty lines.
She noted further that partnering with critical stakeholders, including state governments would reduce drastically such anomaly and that the event afforded the zonal coordination mechanism participants from the six states of the south-south the time to look at how to further promote coherence, accountability and sustainability for the region.
While thanking Governor Otu for his people-oriented policies and programmes which, she said, has given hope to the women-fold, the UN Women representative disclosed that that the ‘Open Day’ was a new initiative by UN Women and her partners to advocate and solicit political commitments from critical stakeholders towards advancing women representation, governance and leadership.
