The issue of high incidence of poverty among women and girls really calls for action when one imagines that Women generally perform five multiple roles – mothers, producers and entrepreneurs, home managers, community organisers and socio-cultural and political leaders. In a critical study of this phenomenon, one discovered that majority of the grassroots women in Nigeria today are poor due to barriers drawn by gender prejudices, traditional, and unjust socio-cultural orders in every day life. My understanding is that these barriers were instituted out of ignorance or as a result of lack of knowledge and understanding of our parents of several generations past.

Historically, I believe that women were likened to any other object in the hands of men, meant only for exploitation, with no right to education and training, access to economic resources and participation in decision making-even in issues that affect them directly, including decent working conditions.

As a girl child, she is groomed to perform specific roles in the family and society, and with the understanding that her stay in her father’s house is temporary from which she must leave as fast as possible in the name of marriage. She gets married to a man who together with his family members also considers her (the ‘woman’) as an acquired being that must not enjoy the right to full sense of belonging, including the right to joint ownership of her husband’s properties. Therefore, if she had been denied good education and training by her parents, she has nothing to fall back on in case of any odd against her. The simple effect of this is poverty.

Unfortunately, the greater proportion of the present generation of parents seem not to have realised the effects of such gender prejudices, traditional, and unjust socio-cultural orders, as they have continued with the same practices, denying the girl child equal opportunities for good education and training, access to economic resources, political freedom and participation in decision making as the boy child.

In most cases, girls are trained to work and operate in the informal sector and among contingent or part-time labourers and as home-workers. All of these sectors are characterised by poor wages, lack of benefits, less job security and strenuous and poor working conditions, hence the propensity for such category of people to become poor is high.

With all the inadequacies in infrastructures and access to relevant services which are more relevant to the business activities of women, it is very obvious that government itself is contributing significantly to the incidence of poverty among women and girls.

There is therefore every need to confront the problem of ignorance or lack of knowledge and understanding with extensive Advocacy and sensitisation programs, while re-orientating the perception of these women on poverty issues, and through a critical gender perspective expose them to poverty prevention principles and strategies, and subsequently empower them with necessary skills.

My expectation is that when people are exposed to knowledge and understanding, and empowered to exhibit the right attitude to the issues of gender prejudices, traditional, and unjust socio-cultural orders, the generational cycle of poverty among women and girls will be broken.

It is within this framework that my organization has launched the WEAN Women Anti-Poverty Project.

The project seeks to address the root causes of poverty among grassroots women by re-orientating the perception of these women on poverty issues, and through a critical gender perspective expose women to poverty prevention principles and strategies, and subsequently empower them with necessary skills. When possible, we will back these up with microcredit facility to consolidate and guarantee greater effectiveness of the project.

Since Poverty among women is directly related to their deprivation of rights, lack of access to economic resources, including credit, support services, and minimal participation in the decision-making process, the goal is to break the generational cycle of poverty among women and girls.

Women participating in this program will be brought into the mainstream of economic and socio-political activities to take charge of their own development destiny, and invariably, protect themselves against poverty and deprivations. They will develop self- respect and self-esteem, able to voice their needs, having increased access to resources, information sharing, and creating sisterhood and supportive peer relationships through Women-led projects that draw from the benefits of networking.