By Eze Adiuku
A nongovernmental organization, Community Life Project, is caring out sensitization and awareness workshop on the rights of women and the girl child, advocating an end to harmful cultural practices against them.
Speaking during the training of women leaders in Owerri North LGA, on Saturday, which was held at St Michael’s Catholic Church Umuorii, Owerri North LGA of Imo State, the Program Manager of the organization, Celine Osukwu said the essence of the training with the Theme: ‘The role of women leaders in building just and healthy families and communities’, was to highlight some sociocultural issues with the need to addressing them.
According to Osukwu: “The issue of women right to inheritance to their father’s property needs wider awareness and sensitization for general acceptance by the people. Women should have rights to their father’s property just like their male counterpart. We need to stop the discrimination”.
Continuing, she said, “community leaders and stakeholders need to come together to determine to address those issues that are prone to causing troubles within the communities and families. There’s need to stop gender based violence in the society and that can be achieved through ensuring healthy families and communities and creating safe space for open communication”.
Ojukwu states that those harmful traditional sociocultural issues that demand urgent attention include: Keeping widows indoors until the husband is buried, women not participating financially in the burial of their husband, denial of husband’s property especially when she does not have a male child, widows being isolated from using things together with other family members, forcing of widow to take oat by community to prove her innocence over their husband’s death, taking women as inferior among other discriminating factors being suffered by women in the communities.
She hinted that the organization is working in the Southeast to address the issues that are impinging the growth of women especially breaking glass ceilings that come as stereotypes.
She urged traditional institutions to continue to campaign against victimization of women and girl children and offer the opportunities to live their full potentials as they are not inferior to anyone.
One of the participants, Osuji Martins Roseline Ebere said: “We should learn to treat especially women and girl children with dignity and respect. There’s no need to give more preference to the male child. Everyone should be made to perform roles together without reserving roles for one gender as has been the challenge in most communities”.
She spoke against early marriage, denial of father’s inheritance, education of female and male children to enable them become better children in future and frown against discrimination of the women and girl children.
Osuji Martins assured that she will take the learning from the training down to other people especially during their August meetings.
Community Life Project is a Non-Governmental organization committed to the welfare and progress of men and women, families, grassroots citizens and people in rural communities and urban townships.
The participants were drawn from Umuoba, Umualum, Okwu and Umuorii villages of Obibi Uratta community, Owerri North LGA, Imo State.
