Women need space to achieve full potential — Bauchi NHRC coordinator

A call has been made for the creation of space for women in Nigeria to enable them to thrive and achieve their full potential in all ramifications.

The call was made by the Coordinator of the Bauchi State office of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Yahcit Dala as she joined a Bauchi Non-governmental Organization, Attah Sisters Helping Hand (ASHH) Foundation in the call for the promotion of Gender diversity in the state.

The ASHH Foundation is funded by Women for Women International, in that regard, organized a 2-day workshop with key stakeholders on Responsive Action to the Women Peace and Security Pillars (Participation, Prevention, Protection Relief, and Recovery) as means to promoting gender diversity in Bauchi state.

Speaking at the workshop, Yahcit Dala said, “The workshop is just an interactive discussion to see our understanding of safe spaces and how effective it has been, how we have been providing those safe spaces for women to express themselves and to get the necessary support.”

According to her, the meeting was also aimed at looking at those legal resources available for women to achieve safe spaces to see that gender-based violence against them is addressed.

Yahcit Dala expressed delight that the participants were able to understand what “safe spaces for women” are, adding that there was a general agreement that it’s grossly inadequate and calls for Creation of better avenues for women to achieve their full potential.

The Bauchi state Coordinator of the NHRC described as disturbing, issues of rape, domestic violence, abandonment of spouse, and parental responsibility as well rampant cases of witchcraft stigmatization where the community targets widows who have no protection from their husbands by accusing her, among others.

According to her, “In most cases, widows are accused of witchcraft, sometimes even send her out of the community because the husband is dead and she’s left vulnerable, issues of denial of women and girls to inheritance, among others also need to be addressed.”

She stressed that gender-based violence has a lot of serious negative implications on society, as such, community members should work towards addressing it by providing support to victims of gender-based violence.

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