Attah Sisters foundation urges more spaces for women to thrive

By Samuel Luka, Bauchi

A Non-governmental organization, Attah Sisters Helping Hand Foundation Bauchi has called for the promotion of Gender diversity in the state.

Funded by Women for Women International, the Foundation to that regard, organized a 2-day workshop with key stakeholders on Responsive Action to the Women Peace and Security Pillars (Participation, Prevention, Protection Relief and Recovery) as means to promoting gender diversity in Bauchi state.

Speaking at the workshop, Bauchi state Coordinator of National Human Rights Commission, Yahcit Dala called for the creation of safe space for women to thrive and achieve their full potentials in all facet of life.

“The workshop is just an interactive discussion to see our understanding on safe spaces and how effective it has been, how we have been providing thoss safe spaces for women to express themselves and to get the necessary support”, she said.

According to her, the meeting was also aimed at looking at those legal resources available for women to achieve safe spaces to see that gender based violence against them are addressed.

Dala expressed delight that the participants were able to understand what “safe spaces for women” is, adding that there was a general agreement that it’s grossly inadequate and calls for Creation of better avenues for women to achieve their full potentials.

The Bauchi state Coordinator of the NHRC described as disturbing, issues of rape, domestic violence, abandonment of spouse and parental responsibility as well rampant cases of witchcraft stigmatization where the community targets widows who have no protection from her husband by accusing her, among others.

“In most cases, widows are accused of witchcraft, sometimes even send her out of the community because the husband is dead and she’s left vulnerable, issues of denial of women and girls to inheritance, among others also need to be addressed”, Dala said.

According to her, gender based violence has a lot of serious negative implications on the society, as such, community members should work towards addressing it by providing support to victims of gender based violence.