Group decries harassment of rights defenders

Partnership for Justice Nigeria has called for a joint effort to protect the rights of Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRD) from constant threats and harassment.

Managing Partner of the group, Itoro Eze-Anaba, made the call at an event marking this year’s International Women Human Rights Defenders Day in partnership with the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (IFA), Protection International Africa and the National Human Resource Development (NHRD) in Abuja.

Eze-Anaba said that women human rights defenders have, for many years, faced existential threats because they are often seen as people trying to break the norms.

She said history has shown that women’s rights advocates have faced threats, societal exclusion and labelling because they are fighting a cause that has plagued humanity for decades, the rights violation of women due to patriarchy and harmful cultural norms.

Eze-Anaba said: “Today, we are celebrating women who have been protecting other women who have made sacrifices to protect women and children in Nigeria. We are telling them thank you and we are solidly behind them.

“Today, we remember those who have died and have left us, who worked hard for us to stand on their shoulders and achieve what we are achieving.

“We are building on the legacies that our mothers and grandmothers established, ensuring that we, as mothers and grandmothers of today, also leave a legacy for others.”

In her view, practices like femicide, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV), and other such practices, which have continued to undermine women across societies, are issues that women rights defenders take up to protect women at risk or those in such situations.