The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has advised women to stand tall and find their voices without fear of contradiction to be adequately represented in governance structures.
NLC President, Joe Ajaero, made the call during the Africa and Arab Regional Women’s Conference, held recently.
Noting that colonialism had taken its toll on the African and Arab world, Ajaero said it was no reason for women to continue to lose their voices in the global conversation.
He wondered why in the Western world where gender issues have received more robust attention, African and Arab countries still battle with issues around women inequality and employment; occupational discrimination; ethnic minorities and workplace profiling; equal work and unequal pay including sports; working full-time after motherhood; work-life conflicts, careers and social class; the unpaid work, household division of labour and the new family formation outside the family we know, among others
He said in African and Arab countries, the challenges assume a more complex dimension due to a combination of highly evolving diverse cultural, social, economic and political experiences.
According to him: “In these milieux, women’s rights are abridged or completely trampled underfoot and this is taken as normal. A few women with the courage to raise a voice are profiled and labelled as social misfits. In some instances, “justice” to such women is harsh and swift to serve as a lesson to other upstarts before they infect the society to which we are accustomed.
“The society is organised against women in five major ways: laws, religions, organisations, institutions and political power sharing. It is a complete siege without an escape route from the male predators and their female collaborators. Emphasising ways the NLC had contributed to giving women voices, he said the congress has encouraged affiliates to ensure a minimum of 30 per cent representation of women in their structures, including power sharing.
He said beyond giving support, it has worked at various levels to ensure a fair and equitable representation of women in all its structures.
At the political level, Ajaero, who said the NLC has a well-thought-out gender policy, stressed that the congress has repeatedly marched with women’s organisations to the National Assembly to demand statutory women representation in the parliament.
The labour chief alleged plans against forces that sought to polarise and weaken organised labour by needlessly splitting unions or pitching them against one another.
He alleged this was happening at a time Capital is consolidating its hold on labour through mergers, acquisitions and overwhelming national governments.
He also alleged plans by inordinately ambitious members, who sought titles instead of service, to put their ambitions in check for the sake of the movement and the workers.
On his expectations, the NLC chief urged the women to find ways of addressing the challenges of paid and unpaid care work, the launch an advocacy guide to empower and reposition women to be advocates and not complainants of social re-engineering and re-organisation of care, as well as setting up of priorities of work.
