Gender and social inequality

Sir: The supreme law of Nigeria which is the 1999 Constitution prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender. However, certain customary and religious practices have continued to limit the rights of women within the society. Therefore, any customary practice that denies women equal opportunity with men can be challenged in a federal court.

Despite the fact that globalisation has gone a long way to bury the perception of women as second fiddle, certain practices within the Nigerian society are yet to accept the new order. Women are the victims of gender imbalance in virtually every sector of the society. Educationally, the girl child is sometimes compelled to sacrifice her educational ambition on the altar of the education of the male child. The intellectual capacity of the male and female individuals are usually not taken into consideration when making this decision. Evidence has shown that certain female children are actually more intelligent than their male counterparts.

Health wise, Nigeria has one of the worst statistics on maternal mortality in the world. A study by World Health Organisation (WHO) puts the figure of maternal deaths during child birth at 58,000 for the year 2015. In Nigeria, one woman dies every 10 minutes during child birth. A lot of pregnant women are subjected to inability to access quality healthcare services, poor access to safe child birth services and lack of affordable emergency obstetric services.

Martins Eke,
Abuja, FCT