{"id":3749,"date":"2025-03-12T07:48:35","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T07:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/?p=3749"},"modified":"2025-03-12T17:15:06","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T17:15:06","slug":"international-womens-day-accelerating-action-for-women-participation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/international-womens-day-accelerating-action-for-women-participation\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERNATIONAL WOMEN\u2019S DAY: ACCELERATING ACTION FOR WOMEN PARTICIPATION"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The world marked\u00a0<strong>International Women\u2019s Day (IWD)<\/strong>\u00a0on\u00a0<strong>March 8<\/strong>, and Nigeria joined in the global celebration. This year\u2019s theme is\u00a0<strong>&#8220;Accelerate Action.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This theme is particularly relevant as Nigeria, with a\npopulation of over&nbsp;<strong>250 million<\/strong>, continues to have\none of the lowest levels of women\u2019s participation in the legislature.\nCurrently, only&nbsp;<strong>16 (now 15) women<\/strong>&nbsp;are represented in the&nbsp;<strong>360<\/strong><strong>-member House of\nRepresentatives<\/strong>. In the&nbsp;<strong>109-member Senate<\/strong>,\nonly&nbsp;4 (now <strong>3<\/strong><strong>)<\/strong><strong> women<\/strong>&nbsp;are represented. This is a bad reflection on Nigeria\u2019s, democracy and international\nreputation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Countries with more women in politics and business have\u00a0stronger economies, reduced inequalities, and better social policies such as Rwanda, which implemented gender quotas, now has the\u00a0highest percentage of female lawmakers in the world, leading to\u00a0progressive policies in education, healthcare, and economic growth. Norway\u2019s gender quota\u00a0for corporate boards has strengthened its economy and promoted more ethical leadership. Nigeria\u2019s own history\u00a0shows that when women are in power, real change happens, like\u00a0Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala who helped negotiate Nigeria\u2019s debt relief, or\u00a0late Dora Akunyili, who led the fight against counterfeit drugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite\nyears of advocacy, progress has been painfully slow. That is why bold steps are\nneeded like the&nbsp;Special Seats Bill, one of the strongest attempts to\nincrease women\u2019s representation in Nigerian politics. Sponsored by the Deputy\nSpeaker&nbsp;Rt. Hon. Benjamin Kalu&nbsp;and twelve other lawmakers, the bill\nproposes the creation of&nbsp;one additional legislative seat for women in each\nstate and the Federal Capital Territory. This would bring a total of&nbsp;74\nseats&nbsp;for women in the Senate and House of Representatives. It also\nsuggests adding&nbsp;three special seats for women in each of the 36 State\nHouses of Assembly, creating&nbsp;108 seats&nbsp;for women at the state level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The world marked\u00a0International Women\u2019s Day (IWD)\u00a0on\u00a0March 8, and Nigeria joined in the global celebration. This year\u2019s theme is\u00a0&#8220;Accelerate Action.&#8221; This theme is particularly relevant as Nigeria, with a population of over&nbsp;250 million, continues to have one of the lowest levels of women\u2019s participation in the legislature. Currently, only&nbsp;16 (now 15) women&nbsp;are represented in the&nbsp;360-member House [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3749"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3766,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3749\/revisions\/3766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}