Anti-Women Bills: Only mass action can #BreakPoliticalBias
For a Mass Movement to end gender-based violence
By Gift Precious
For all the past years, capitalism and patriarchy have been “on
top of the game” in Nigeria. We should never fail to make clear that the high
level of corruption, the inequality, the killings, the injustice, the class exploitation
of the poor by the rich and all menaces that befell us in the history of our country,
are a result of the capitalism system that we live in.
As much as all the above evils thrive in our society, so
does patriarchy (the idea that men are superior human beings) and the
oppression of women. Women have been subjected to all sorts of oppression, not
excluding sexual harassment, rape and even murder.
Despite being in the 21st century, still a higher
percentage of girls compared to boys do not have access to formal education, as
women are still being seen as inferior. It is still widely believed that women can't
contribute to the growth and development of the nation, should not attain
political positions etc., despite the popular saying “No women, no nation”.
The kidnapping of
Chibok girls, Dapchi and so on with “Bring
Back our Girls” campaign is in itself a crystal-clear reflection of the kind of
suppression and sufferings women and girls face.
Since 1987, March 8th has been set as the
International Women's Day. We need to remember how the radical African
revolutionary Thomas Sankara talked about the role of women in the development of
society. He said: "The revolution cannot triumph without the
emancipation of women".
There is no true social revolution without the liberation
of women. A nation without liberated women, is yet to be liberated. The
conditions of life of women are therefore at the heart of the question of what
we understand by humanity itself, here, there, and everywhere
Nigerian women joined the International Women's Day
celebration across the world, to protest about the general situation of women
but particularly about the fact that this year the social and economic
situation of the country has further exposed Nigeria women to danger.
One of it is ritualist, the phantom belief that some organ
of a woman’s body can be used to make money through a spiritual process. This
is part of the barbaric conditions in which young men and women are living, trying
to find shortcuts to make money amidst the continued economic crisis.
Recently we have seen scores of cases of young girls been
kidnapped and organs being removed from their bodies. We have also saw the
situation where women are gang raped by men of the same age range.
Recently a young women called Bamise, 22 years old, in Lagos
State, fell victim to ritual killers, who raped her and later removed body
parts. We have many cases like this in recent times. Bamise had simply entered
a public BRT bus in Lagos and the rest is history. Though some people have been
arrested in connection with her case, this is of little comfort. For how long
are we going to have this kind of attacks on girls how many will lose their
life before we are able to put an end to this barbarism?
We demand from the Lagos State government and the Federal
government to make sure justice is done, not only for Bamise but for all other
women and girls who have fallen victims of sexism, kidnapping, rape and ritual
killings.
On March 1st, Nigeria’s 9th National Assembly
voted on an anti-women bill which has since then sparked a movement of women
against it and thus this year's March 8th “celebration” became a festival
of protest.
The bill can be summed up by the following points:
·
It declines citizenship to a foreign-born
husband of a Nigerian woman.
·
A Nigerian man's foreign-born wife gets
automatic citizenship.
·
It denies Nigerians in the diaspora the right to
vote, it denies women the ability to take citizenship of their husband's state
after 5 years of being together.
·
It denies 35% appointed positions for women.
·
It denies women 35% presence in party
administration and leadership.
·
It rejects specific percentage of seats for
women in the National Assembly
These clauses, once again, reveal how the patriarchal
capitalist system still operates in Nigeria.
Since then, Nigerian women and different civil society
groups have started campaigning on social media and with mass protests, using
slogans such as the following.
#NigerianWomenOccupyNASS, #BreakPoliticalBias, #BreakConstitutionBias,
#GenderBias.
On this year international women's day, thousands of
women protested across Nigeria. Also about 2,000 women occupied the National
Assembly in Abuja, to reject the new anti-women bill.
Revolutionary Socialist Movement is taking an active part in
the effort to build a socialist feminist movement also posing socialism as an alternative
to the present crisis of capitalism. Capitalism is responsible for the
unbearable strains on girls and women. Working class women are facing double
oppression under capitalism – first as workers and second as women.
On 6th of April, 2022
a Federal High Court in Abuja ruled in
favour of women. The court ordered the government to comply with the 35%
affirmative action for women, which allows women occupy 35% of all
appointments.
Delivering judgement on Wednesday, Justice Donatus Okorowo,
said the Federal Government had the obligation to implement the 35 per cent
affirmative action, accusing past governments of acting in breach of
international treaties on women participation in government.
As we write, abortion is still illegal in Nigeria. RSM is part
of the movement fighting for abortion rights, particularly as reports show that
many women die in the hands of quack doctors every year as a result of illegal abortions.
The level of insecurity in Nigeria is also responsible for
numerous cases of sexual harassment, rape and all other oppression
RSM, the Internationalist standpoint section in
Nigeria, is struggling for the enforcement by the National Assembly of bills to
ensure gender equality.
Nigerian working women and girls have the right to live
in dignity, free from discrimination, oppression and abuse; and must be able to
fully enjoy their human rights without exclusions based on gender.
RSM will continue to stand against all form of oppression
against women and join with forces which genuinely strive to build a socialist
feminist movement, against the capitalist system and patriarchy that goes hand
in hand with it.
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