Why Gender and Equal Opportunity Bill Should Be Rejected
Iam a woman. I am a promoter of the dignity of womanhood. I am an advocate of political and economic rights of women. I love womanhood because I am a woman. But at the same I am a very discerning person. I have read and re-read the Gender and Equal Opportunity Bill 2016 (GEO Bill 2016) presently being sponsored at the Senate by Senator Abiodun Olujimi, and, I must tell you that something serious is wrong with the said Bill. The title of the Bill certainly conveys a wrong impression that the Bill is good. But the Bill is a bad Bill even though some sections of the Bill are lauadable. It is noteworthy that when the same Senator Olujimi first presented the GEO Bill before the Senate, it was rejected. I gather that the bill has been revised and returned to the Senate by Senator Abiodun Olujimi,. Going through the so-called revised Bill, I discovered that it is not different from the earlier Bill that was rejected by the Senate.
To start with, the Bill aims at domesticating (i) Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), (ii) The Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol) and (iii) The International Covenant on Human Rights which affirm the principles of non-discrimination etc. CEDAW, Maputo Protocol and International Covenant on Human Rights have been condemned by the immediate past Nigerian Ambassador to the UN Ambassador Usman Sarki and other ambassadors from other countries. These ambassadors ensured that no LGBT and abortion rights entered the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that was adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2015.
I am not sure Senator Abiodun Olujimi knows that the GEO Bill which she is sponsoring is a vehicle to legalize Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) rights, abortion rights, immoral sex education for children in Nigeria.
If the GEO Bill is passed by our National Assembly and signed by our President, Nigeria would legalize LGBT practices in Nigeria, Population Control through abortion, contraception; breakdown of the family and societal values through promotion of radical equality rather than fundamental equality between men and women as entrenched in our Constitution. We must understand that men and women are ontologically equal but they are different physically, psychologically and physiologically. Therefore they cannot have “equal participation” in all areas of society as this GEO Bill proposes. We are not a unisex society. I advise my fellow women to seek equity and respect from men rather than equality with them because the two sexes were never made to be the same and will never be same. A recent event illustrates my point. A man who transgendered to a woman, competed with women in weight lifting and he won the first prize. Are we surprised that the man won? No. because even though he had transgendered, he is still a man, physically, psychologically and physiologically.
A cursory examination of the different sections of GEO Bill reveals that it is a very dangerous Bill. To begin with, the notion ‘gender’ used in several sections of the Bill has up to hundred different definitions. Gender no longer means male or female as we traditionally understand it to be. It is no longer determined by biology. It is now a ‘social construct’. It is now portrayed as something malleable, something that one feels or chooses to be or is assigned to or something that a person imposes on the society to accept rather than what is by nature.
Section 2 of the GEO Bill states that discrimination against any person means any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of his/her sex or gender or other condition or status. Do we really want to remove all distinctions, exclusions and restrictions in all areas – social, civil, cultural etc? This will amount to a unisex arrangement in all spheres of our daily life including having the same bathroom and toilet facilities for everybody – male and female. Also the roles which are usually restricted to a distinct sex in religious and cultural matters, will cease to exist. This will undermine our religious, moral and cultural values and will open the door to another set of discrimination.
The GEO Bill outlaws all Nigerian institutions which have designated roles for males and females, such as the Catholic Priesthood, Imams, traditional rulers, Rev. Sisters, motherhood, fatherhood and so forth. This is sad. The Bill talks about affirmative action of reserving 35% of employment opportunity in every institution in Nigeria be it public or private for women. This is very questionable. The sponsor of the Bill forgets that equal employment opportunities should be for those who are qualified for the jobs and possess the capacity to hold such positions. Besides, some organizations naturally do not employ women to do certain jobs such as night guard or cutting down a tree not because they discriminate against women but simply because they believe that such a job can only be done well by a man. Non-discrimination in educational placement as the Bill promotes implies abolishing “all boys” and “all girls” schools including seminaries and convents. Is this what we want to do in Nigeria ? Certainly No.
More importantly, verbal utterances including preaching by religious leaders and even admonitions by elders and parents can be interpreted, pursuant to the Bill, as abuse or violence against the person it is directed to. Therefore, religious leaders and parents can be punished under the Bill for uttering admonishing words. What this means is that children can take their parents to court for scolding them. Religious leaders can be taken to court by any member of their congregation for preaching against the ills in the society like abortion, contraception, LGBT practices, kidnapping, armed robbery etc. This is already happening in the West.
Sections 4, 8 and 10 of the Bill are very dangerous. They contain euphemisms such as Reproductive Health (RH) which are euphemisms that promote abortion, contraception and sterilisation. According to World Health Organisation (WHO), Reproductive Health “implies that people are able to have responsible, satisfying and safe sex life and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so. Implicit in this are the right of men and women to be informed and to have access to safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of fertility regulation of their choice… Reproductive health also embraces sexual rights which include the human rights of women including girl-child to have control over their body and decide freely and responsibly on matters related to their sexuality, free of coercion, discrimination and violence”. From this definition it is obvious that, reproductive health connotes teen and adolescent “safe-sex”, including LGBT practices, contraception, abortion, sterilization, promiscuity even in children etc. These eventually will lead to smaller families, population control and increase in breakdown of societal and family values, increase in sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS.
On September 11th 2015 the Leadership Newspaper published interesting information. It published that the United Nation Population Funds (UNFPA) advised Nigerian government to withdraw its objection at the United Nations against reproductive health. The UNFPA, according to the paper, said that . “if Nigeria withdraws her reservation on the two targets of SDGs the country will get maximum value for Naira”. These targets are 3.7 which seeks universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and 5.6 which seeks universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights. This shows that the strength of the Naira is controlled by the United Nations.
If reproductive health program is something beneficial to Nigeria why did our government reject it at the United Nations? Why is the United Nations punishing Nigeria for rejecting it?
Reproductive health programs promotes abortion as a form of Family planning. Abortion leads to reduction in family size which invariable leads to reduction in population size. But children are our future and social security. Presently, 59 countries, comprising 44% of the world’s population are not producing enough children to avoid population decline. By 2045, according to UN projections the world’s fertility rate will have fallen below replacement levels, that is, 2.1 children per woman. If Nigeria is not careful it will soon be graying like Europe.
Mind you, the European Union countries are paying their women and giving them other incentives for them to start bearing children. So, why is the West forcing African countries to stop having children?. Who is fooling who?