HEIR Women Hub Drives Reserved Seats Bill For Women, Youth, Marginalised

As Nigerians await the House of Representatives’ ballot connected the Reserved Seats Bill successful October, HEIR Women Hub has amplified calls for inclusive leadership, 1 that recognises the voices of older and younger women, persons with disabilities, and different marginalised groups.

This was the absorption of a knowledge-sharing webinar themed “Influencing the Reserved Seats Bill – Who Are the Beneficiaries?”, convened to deepen knowing of the Bill and item its imaginable to alteration Nigeria’s governmental landscape.

The lawsuit brought unneurotic sex advocates, policymakers, disablement rights leaders, exertion experts, and improvement practitioners, to property for guaranteed legislative seats for women, youth, and underrepresented communities.

HEIR Women Hub enforcement director, Anuli Aniebo, underscored the urgency of passing the Bill into instrumentality and expressed interest astir debased nationalist awareness. She revealed that the organisation has launched petitions, surveys, and unpaid platforms to stitchery grounds and mobilise citizens up of the October vote.

“The extremity of this advocacy is to organise astir the Reserved Seats Bill, summation awareness, and guarantee each national understands what is astatine stake,” she said.

“Young people, particularly young women, indispensable beryllium centred successful this push, due to the fact that this Bill tin unfastened doors for them to enactment meaningfully successful decision-making erstwhile it becomes law.

“Inclusive enactment is not conscionable astir adding numbers; it’s astir reshaping governance. This Bill is simply a accidental to constitute a caller section successful Nigeria’s antiauthoritarian story,” she added.

In her goodwill message, renowned sex advocator Ene Ede described the Bill arsenic “historic,” noting its imaginable to calm Nigeria’s tense governmental clime and make abstraction for those agelong excluded.

“Reserved seats volition let younger women, women with disabilities, and marginalised taste nationalities to yet person a dependable successful parliament. That is however existent inclusion volition play out,” she said.

On her part, Dr. Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, a starring women’s rights campaigner, emphasised intersectionality, cautioning that practice indispensable chopped crossed divers categories of women.

“Women are not homogenous. We indispensable not hide women with disabilities, grassroots women, enactment workers, and number groups. The Reserved Seats Bill is 1 of the astir minimal but astir important steps we tin take, and it indispensable beryllium passed without delay,” she urged.

On disablement rights and accessibility, Zainab Mustapha, Women Leader of the Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities (JONAPWD), lamented the lack of women with disabilities crossed Nigeria’s 991 legislative seats.

“We person zero practice of women with disabilities. The Bill provides a model to close this exclusion and guarantee governmental accessibility,” she said.

She added that consciousness campaigns indispensable besides code deep-seated biases astir the enactment abilities of persons with disabilities portion improving carnal accessibility successful nationalist buildings and governmental institutions.

Technology and improvement specialist, Faiz Muhammad, highlighted however integer tools tin interruption down barriers to participation.

“Technology tin region fiscal and geographic limitations by bringing civic acquisition to agrarian populations successful section languages,” helium said.

He besides urged men to go disposable champions of the Bill. “Inclusive enactment is not a women-only issue; it requires antheral allies to dismantle taste and structural barriers,” helium added.

Broadcast Journalist and advocator Ademola Lawrence echoed this call, noting that men indispensable presumption enactment arsenic a substance of capacity, not gender.

“Leadership is astir individuals, not astir gender. If women tin pb banks and planetary businesses successfully, they tin besides pb successful politics,” helium said. “Men indispensable alteration their mindset and actively enactment the Reserved Seats Bill truthful it becomes a bequest for aboriginal generations.”

Meanwhile, Nafisat Atiku-Adejuwon, co-founder of Young African Women for Democracy, stressed that young women indispensable beryllium fixed abstraction to pb wrong governmental parties.

“We cannot conscionable accidental we privation younker inclusion; we indispensable make the platforms, roles, and opportunities for young women to instrumentality ownership and tally with them,” she said.

She added that cognition is captious and that governmental parties indispensable interruption down barriers to let much women to contention enactment positions.

“This cannot spend to beryllium an elitist conversation. It needs to beryllium a treatment that each Nigerian has a pulse on, nary substance who you are oregon wherever you live,” she said, calling for wider partnerships and coalitions,” she added.

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