Minister urges states to harmonize gender rights Acts

The Minister of Women Affairs Aisha Alhassan is calling on all states of the federation to harmonize their gender rights Acts in line with the Violence Against Persons (VAPP) Act.

Aisha Alhassan who was speaking at a media and Stakeholders Parley in Abuja, noted that despite most states having passed various laws to help prevent gender based violence, the situation is yet to be brought under control, with women and girls suffering immensely due to harmful cultural practices.

She noted that the ministry has since constituted a committee to ensure that the Nigerian people at all levels are educated about the VAPP Act, in order to arm the victims with the knowledge that it is no longer lawful to be treated in that manner.

Aisha Alhassan said that "laws and policies on human rights in nigeria are mostly inspired by international treaties,regional frameworks and national mechanisms".

"Section 12 of the constitution stipulates that all international and regional treaties that the Nigerian Government ascents to must be passed into law by an Act of parliament in order for those treaties to be enforceable in the country".

She further stated that the national approach on dealing with the issue of women's human rights at the level of law and policy has mostly been to assume that are well covered within the overarching framework for rights protection in Nigerian for all citizens.

"This is different from proven best practice at both international and regional levels where women's human rights are disaggregated and addressed in separate frameworks in spite of the existence of more generic frameworks on human rights".

"It is possible that this gap in terms of adopting and enforcing legal and institutional mechanisms for the furtherance of women's human rights is responsible for the country's latest poor ranking in the 2012 Global social institutions and gender index. Nigeria was ranked 79th position of the 86 countries considered in OECD,2012".

She called on all stakeholders to work tirelessly to ensure that a holistic strategic action be put in place to actualize success in the VAPP Act implementation.

And called on religious and traditional leaders as well as the media, CSO partners and goodwilling Nigerians and to join hands to fight and lift the veil of silence, to support all vulnerable persons especially women and girls to speak out against what is happening to them and to protect them from violence.