Inimfon Etuk, an advocate of women liberation and empowerment, in this interview with CHARLES AIDOGHIE bares her mind on several issues affecting women and the girl child
Do you think that Nigerian women are where they are supposed to be?
Aah there are many ways of answering that question. First of all, having International Women’s Day, its exciting to be here and to see that women have made alot of progress. Personally and I say so because alot of women are self – driven. If we were to focus on societal issues that continues to limit our ability to strive and pursue our goals, then women will not want to do anything, women will not have anything to their names but alot of women are the ones who are bread winners in their families, alot of women put themselves through school, alot of families espercially in the north, most of the families in the north are headed by females. That is not a common knowledge but its a fact that has been established. So the question is if women are able to do those things within small family units, imagine the impact that will come if we are to have more women in leadership places, in governance systems and across institutions and boards. The last elections in 2019 was one where we felt really sad because we saw alot of women, very phenomenal women drop out of the race because the voting (system) was not just favourable. Even prior to becoming candidates, alot of women were disenfranchised.
So you see that generally, society has not come to a point of complete understanding in terms of the value women bring to the table. Women are natural care givers, women are the custodians of our grassroots economies at the local level. They are the farmers, they are the ones who hue fire woods, they are the ones who nuture children, there are lot of responsibilities in terms of managing the homes that is bestowed on women. I don’t think our society fully comprehends that the world was made for women. And if we begin to understand that, whether the politics is favourable or not, we should see governments begin to consciously appoint women into leadership positions. That is the only way women can achieve progress for Nigeria as we begin another turn of development in 2019. And I am really looking forward to seeing alot of these appointments because we didn’t have enough women and we are not saying be pitiful on women but we are saying is recognize the skills that women possess that are innate and bring those to bear in making sure that we find qualified women and put them in positions that will allow them to bring in their best for national growth.
What about in the home? How do you begin to train our young children, our young boys to always appreciate that women have equal rights that they have?
Well, alot of the conversations we are considering now, both from my organisation now, alot of the stakeholders we have, we deeply advocate for share compensation because if the boy – child is a part of the compensation, then we will begin to affect that mind-set from a tender age. We won’t grow up to have boys who grow up to begin to inflict pain on women, to be violent towards women, we will have boys who understands that women have different homonal considerations, that women have different psychological, physiological make up from men and that certain things are just natural to women that are not natural to men. It would be a unified thing. So it is important to have those compensation even including in school curriculum. It is important to begin to have those discussions from schools, from homes. Our parents should not shy away from raising those discussions with our little girls, with our little boys. When we where young children, you know most people said if you touch a man, you get pregnant. But we know factually thats not true. We need to understand what causes pregnancy if you are in touch with a man. So when they understand those things from a biological perspective, and from a societal perspective, we will know that we are just different sexes but we are the same. We are human beings with similar needs, with similar aspirations. Essentially, we need to continue to encourage each other to share that love as co – inhabitants of the earth.
When you say the world is made for women, what do you really mean?
The world is a global breeding space for humans. Breeding connotes birthing and nurturing for life to exist and thrive. Women are natural nurturers. From giving birth to suckling to firewood, to water to subsistence farming, you find that it is the women who are the custodians of our grassroots economy. What this essentially means is that so much of the success we desire in today’s world depends to a large extent, on the overall foundational welfare of the woman in terms of her basic education, soundness of health, skills set, and financial capabilities. The rest is a function of scale, scaling up the impact of that positive welfare across various levels of growth and development in the polity. So, just imagine how phenomenal the outcome would be if we lived in a just and fair world!
The major bottle-neck in girl-child/women education is how to expand and improve its quality. What is your organization doing, or intends to do to bring education closer to our females and those in the rural areas in the north?
She Forum Africa, which is a women development, leadership and lifestyle community is a brand that is evolving at a time of factual relevance. At the heart of our organisation’s focus is the burning need to promote healthy conversations and solutions that will help address persisting issues surrounding the education, health, safety, integrated development and economic advancement of our women and girls. Our target audience is Women and Girls. Within this catchment group, you will find a growing realization of the need to evolve with the times, step into their space and live the lives of their dreams. This is accompanied, if not driven, by the need to self-develop.
It is this need we are responding to. That is why there is an appreciable level of positive response towards our activities. Secondly, we are consciously expanding the conversation to cover the men and boys in everything we do. We cannot keep talking to and with ourselves alone if we are to achieve greater and impactful results. We are by and large, the first organisation to have a dedicated HeForShe All-Male Panel in a Women’s Conference, a year ahead of the United Nation’s launch of the HeForShe Campaign. We started this right from when we first convened the Forum in 2014 and we’ve kept it up till date. That way, we are able to bring the men’s perspective, on the issues in focus, to the table from the start and deal with whatever perceptions, misconceptions or stereotypes exist. Thirdly, our engagement approach is quite different from what most people are used to. We are respectfully conversational in our engagement. We allow and encourage the ownership of the discussion space to be audience/need driven not theoretical and prescriptive. Everyone brings something to the table at all levels and we ensure that our learning and advocacy spaces remain a platform for sharing in a way that creates impact and inspires towards greater personal productivity.
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You talk about the education of our girls, it has been a herculean task working with other advocates to increase the enrollment of girls in schools especially up north. Now, just at the point where we thought things were getting better with enrolment rate, the challenge became one of safety. So the issue moved from enrolment to safety. The safety of our girls in school cannot be over-emphasised. How can we encourage more girls to be enrolled in school if their safety is not guaranteed? This takes us back to the issue of our value system as communities and as a people. We are tireless in our call on institutions and decision making organs across the continent to go beyond laws and put in implementation systems that work to protect women and girls, especially girls in school. We are operating from the prism that in all moral consciousness, Nigeria, Africa and indeed the global community, cannot rest while her girls and women are not safe.
In furthering our advocacy, we continue to make reference to the United Nations SDGs, with particular attention to SDG5 which targets gender equality and empowerment for all women and girls. We believe that for this Goal to be seen to have been achieved, Governments and institutions must primarily ensure that the needs of women and girls are reflected in their planning and budgeting because you cannot solve problems without commensurate financial provisions towards those problems. Conversely, governments may be unable to reflect these needs, if we ourselves do not make all the relevant effort to articulate extensively what these needs are. This is why we convene the annual She Forum Africa Conference, to bring advocates and institutions together to articulate current realities surrounding the girl-child and the advancement of women. The whole idea is to be able to recommend refreshed solutions to our decision-makers. She Forum Africa 2019 comes up in July, and we are already working hard to ensure the outcomes are highly impactful.
The fact of the matter is this, the equality that women seek, is not a change in gender such that we become men, but a change in attitude towards our gender. It is an equality that is better referred to as EQUITY as it applies to equal access to opportunities for education, better healthcare, and abolition of laws, policies, gender based stereotypes, social norms, all forms of bias and discriminatory practices that continue to dehumanize women instead of according us the right coverage our gender truly deserves. Personally, I have often maintained that we women have a critical role to play in achieving Planet 5050 by 2030. We are the ones who must take the initiative to address issues of poverty, inequality and violence against women that continue to inhibit our abilities to lead normal productive lives. This is fundamentally why our organization, She Forum Africa exists.
In the face of current global economic downturn cutting through the developed and underdeveloped countries, it is currently being reported that 51million girls are out of school, a data that I believe might not adequately capture the true picture of our current situation. With wars in some parts of Africa, famine, drought, and all kinds of natural disasters in different locations, such as the cyclone in Mozambique, amongst other man-made debilitating issues, all constituting a threat to EDUCATION for our girls on the continent, the future picture is painted in bleak paints. We cannot afford to jettison our journey to a 50/50 World by 2030 or 2063 as now promoted, which by the way is attainable… It is Possible with renewed commitments by you, I and all lovers of women. The girl-child is deserving of every support that is available. She is the one who grows into womanhood and subsequently becomes the mother at whose instance, the world is preserved.
Our invitation to all to deepen the conversation represents an opportunity to strengthen existing efforts at supporting the growth and active participation of women in development processes in a sustainable way. We envisage She Forum Africa to birth a continent-wide movement that will reawaken public and institutional consciousness to the existing and persisting plight of women and girls especially as they relate to girl-child education, health, security and sustainable livelihoods.
At the end of the day, it is all about making impact that is AUTHENTIC!
We have to go back to the value system where being humane is our default approach to governance and service delivery. We have to go back to respect and regard for the sacredness, sanctity and dignity of not just our girls in school but the human life as a whole. There is a gap or at best, a leadership flaw where security of lives is concerned in our country. Something needs to give within our non-existent social welfare infrastructure in Nigeria. Governments and institutions need to recognise this leadership flaw and demonstrate a measurable and track-able commitment to cater to its repair by addressing the social welfare gaps in our local communities; endorsing laws that improve access to education, healthcare, safe and sustainable livelihoods; as well as the sanctity of free expression and personal choices.
Our sustained role remains our commitment and relentless action to bring these and many other challenges to the frontline to galvanise popular discourse and tangible solutions.
Beyond our advocacy for girl-child education, we are passionate in our efforts to catalyse the conscious participation of women in democratic processes and governance systems; promote entrepreneurship and women’s business initiatives in local communities as well as best practices in creating partnerships, financing new enterprises, and encouraging strategic involvement in leadership and governance. Without a safe and secure environment guaranteed by our governments and institutions, these remain mere aspirations. We remain committed to our Vision: To serve as a home-grown, African-led initiative to effect sustainable shifts in our continent’s value systems as they impact women and girls across development and decision-making spheres.
We lay a lot of emphasis on Training and Mentorship so we are continuously creating platforms of engagement under our 3 Streams of focus. These are: (a) Personal Development, Entrepreneurship & Investment financing; (b) Health & Lifestyle (c) Democracy, Leadership & Governance (DLG). We have realised that, whereas poverty is a central problem, there is actually a category of women, who have little savings for entrepreneurship but have no clue about where to start, or how best to apply their existing resources. We capture their needs in our learning programs too. We have over the past months facilitated various DLG Advocacy Programme mostly in partnership with other organisations to address these. We have a lot of content over the years from our focused group sessions, and we are also in discussions on how to re-apply this content as sustainable advocacy tools so more girls and women can benefit from the helpful resource at our disposal. Our core tool is Advocacy. Continuous engagement on issues is very important if we are to reduce major ills and address development challenges in our local communities and larger life in general.
We are looking for partners with whom we can amplify this advocacy; partners who will stand ready and raise up their hands to commit because the time has come to reduce the rhetoric and scale up implementation and impact. Solutions to these challenges exist! If our hearts are in the right place, We will find them together.
