Social protection policies of any government play a very important role in giving women access to the labour markets. Addressing economic risks faced by working class women, be it at the formal and informal settings by making sure that poor families and households meet their basic needs.
Social protection has become prominent in the global development agenda over the past decades with social protection now being included as a target under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), emphasizes the end of poverty in all its forms especially in sub-Saharan Africa among women.
One of the social protection policies targeted at women’s development is the Women’s at Work Trends. It provides data based on studies of women’s positions in the labour markets,
examines the factors behind these trends which have hampered the social protections growth and policy implementations, successes of social protection programmes and goals targeted at women and girls especially in rural societies and explores the policy drives for transformational change.
We need to see the pictures of where women stand today in the world of work and how these social protection nets have aided their progress over the past years.
Today it is germane to link social protections to human rights. How do we encourage rights based organisations in their approach and advocacy for universal access to social protections?
The role of human rights frameworks in supporting the approach, in supporting the social protection achievement goals cannot be overemphasized.
We can also deliver social protections through justice delivery and financing the programmes of actions in rural areas targeted at women and girls equality with their male counterparts. Programmes that are in consonance with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development will always suffice here.
The extremely ambitious and transformative vision embodied in the vision 2030 documents for Sustainable Developments which includes a goal to achieve gender equality must be sustained
and implemented to the later if we can be categorised as a gender sensitive and social protectionist country for our women folk. This also emphasized a governmental commitment to its human rights obligations.
For example, the Cash Transfer Policy of the federal government if well-funded and deliberately allowed to fester and targeting emphatically at the rural women will go a long way in reducing poverty and lead to the empowerment of women.
This will enhance the social protection level of rural women and serve as the needed incentive to spur the social protection rights of women in rural communities.
We are therefore obliged to be conscious of the importance of the Cash Transfer Programme as a component of national social protection floors.
Its advantages to the rural women are that it provides a modest but regular income to rural households which also include women to close the social gap between men and women in rural environments.
They have the potentials to reduce poverty and enhance women’s economic empowerments. Women’s empowerment is paramount for the promotion of human rights developments and inclusive growth not to mention basic human rights.
However, despite notable advances in many parts of the world, Nigeria is yet to achieve most of its articulated and avowed commitments to the social protections of women and above all gender equality.
Against this backdrop, social protection policies of rural women need to be reviewed from time to time by government agencies supported by non-governmental organisations and well-funded programme implementation institutions created to implement programmes of actions, if we are to brace-up with other parts of the civilised world to achieve the 2030 goals.
It has been observed that well enhanced social protection policies are nearly absent in most rural communities. Therefore, the government needs to create a legally compulsory implantation frameworks and guidelines for the states and local governments which bind them to implement and fund programmes of actions. The social protection policies of the rural women are key to the achievement of the gender equality goals.
We can truly achieve this through the provision of a deliberate incentivised initiative which will serves as a buffer for the rural women to achieve their dream of economic, political, religious and above all social equality with the men.
Additionally, the feminists have argued that promotion of girl child education can serve as a tool for empowerment. However, it is also a form of promotion of the existing inequality gap between men and women given a number of initiatives and programmes that have been implemented to bridge the gender gap.
Like promotion of democratic governance and social accountability, respect for woman rights cannot solve women inequality, but rather engender gender inequality. There is, therefore, need for a mechanism that can be adopted as a means to women empowerment beyond the viable need for promotion of women rights.
Social protection is a form of social transformation that can be adopted as a means to strengthening women voices in the development processes at all levels.
African countries where social protection instruments are being used to empower women like Mauritius, Uganda women movements need to engage with the social protection debates for promotion of women dignity and empowerment.
Social protection is not just an instrument but it is a tool that can be adopted to fight the culture of violence that has manifested among the women especially the rural poor women. Above all, social protection, if adopted, is a means for women economic empowerment.
Dr. (Mrs). Jumai Ahmadu sent this piece from Abuja
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