Why violence against women must stop
The value of political equality is central to normative theories of democracy; it is argued that women are also citizens by birth. Thus, there is a need for gender equality, if not the essence of democracy in Nigeria is arrested. Apparently, since the returned of democracy in Nigeria in 1999, women are at the fore-front in contributing to electoral processes, yet, there is no appreciable percentage of women voted in the previous elections which is an indication that women deserve to be included in the democratic governance in this country. But what remain a million questions in the mind of people is why violence against women is always escalating?
In Nigeria, there is a lot of identity base violence against women running daily offline and also on social media platforms. In the just concluded primaries, female aspirants faced challenges compare to male counterparts. For instance, a female aspirant posted on the social media handle that she failed to get ticket from her party because of her inability to sleep with some of the party chieftains. Another case is that of a woman who was forced to step down for a male candidate simply because she is a woman.
Recently, National Democratic Institute designed and launched campaign titled : “Stop Violence Against Women in Election” with the effort of documenting and reporting the incident of violence against women in election to the relevant stake-holders such as election official, security agencies, women group, religious bodies and other organizations that are interested in elections. In spite of all these, women are still facing violence on daily basis. The Punch, Vanguard and Thisday of 24th September reported 60 cases of violence against women recorded in the just concluded Osun Gubernatorial elections.
Violence against women takes different forms and dimension. The violence can be seen as physical, psychological, sexual, threat, cultural and economic violence among others. Also, denying the female aspirant ticket because she refuses sexual advancement from the political parties chieftains, denying them access to financial support, assault, hate languages and cultural barriers especially off in the Northern Nigeria is an indication of extremism. More also, women normally received threat from opponents, members of their own party and even from their own family members. These forms of violence have become apron-string to wide or inclusive participation of women in our democratic process. The numbers of aspirants released from INEC indicated a lacuna in terms of gender compare to male counterpart.
There is no gainsaying that violence against women in elections is a threat to the integrity of the electoral process. It can affect women’s participation as voters, candidates, election officials, activists and political party leaders. Therefore, there is a need for women to be inclusive in the democratic process in Nigeria. For this to happen, the stakeholder must develop new strategies in promoting peaceful and violence-free elections. Also, women should be encouraged to report issue of violence against them to the appropriate authorities.
Idris Mohammed, Program Officer with YIAGA Africa Abuja.