An assessment of Nigerian women from CEDPA

Founded in 1975, the Centre for Development and Population Activities has always focused on issues concerning girls and women in developing countries. They held a discussion yesterday to share their findings in the Niger’s Delta area after a gender assessment conducted in the fall of 2010 and tried to come up with some solutions to the problem with the attending guests.

According to the assessment, women in this region face a lot of challenges, including being forced to leave school earlier due to economic reasons, engaging in bride trade, having no rights to inherit properties, facing polygamy of their husband, having little widowhood rights, etc. They are denied the rights of participation in public affairs.

Besides these traditional problems, new problems have emerged during the past decades. As women are gaining more rights, they are becoming the ones who assume the cost of the family. With skills only in agriculture, they earn little money but have to pay for the education of the children and the expense of daily life. This puts more pressure on them.

However, not only women, but a certain amount of young men there also live a tough life. Land grabbing is not uncommon in south Niger. Oil companies took the land to build factories under the permission of the community leaders and use those land owners as low-wage workers. These young men could hardly make ends meet because they earn so little money, but they can not argue with the factory owners since they are forbidden to talk to the factory owners individually.

One of the biggest obstacles in the progress of Niger is probably the headstrong community system. The community leaders are usually old men who own absolute control over almost everything. Their best interest is to maintain their positions and pass them over to their sons. To do that, they would stop the young people from economic empowerment or fighting for their rights.

The question is: how do we help women and young men make their way out without jeopardizing the relationship with the community? Should we set up a model like helping one or two women to success, or should we build schools to educate the people?

Many viewpoints and solutions were discussed at this insightful meeting. To learn more about the Centre for Development and Population Activities