Participants at a media roundtable in Awka have adopted the “Anambra Women Agenda”, a document containing strategies for increasing women participation in politics in Anambra and steps to end every form of violence against women in the electioneering process.

Correspondent, David Okpokwasili reports that the media roundtable was organized by the Gender Perspective and Social Development Centre, the conveners of the campaign, “Stop Violence Against Women in Politics”, STOP-VAWIP, with media practitioners, human rights activists, leaders of women groups and civil society organizations in attendance.

The “Anambra Women Agenda” is part of the efforts by the Gender Perspective and Social Development Centre to increase awareness and advocacy on all forms of violence against women participation in politics under their campaign, STOP-VAWIP, which has the support of the National Democratic Institute and United States of America Agency For International Development, USAID.

The Agenda, according to the group, contain the outcomes of empirical research of the opinions of Anambra residents from the twenty one local government areas and three hundred and twenty-six wards in the State, on what they think are the hindrances to women participation in politics and the electioneering process, as well as recommendations to ensure that women fully participate in the election process.

The document highlighted the physical, psychological, sexual, economic and semiotic violence which injure and subjugate women with the intention of discouraging them from participating in the election process.

Presenting the content of the document, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer of the Gender Perspective and Social Development Centre, Mr Glory Nwakaogor said the agenda will focus on immediate advocacy to discourage any form of violence that will keep women from participating in the voting process in the November sixth governorship election in Anambra State, and long term measures to increase more women participation in politics.

Before adopting the paper and a long deliberation on the theme of the round table, which harped on “barriers to women participation in Anambra electoral process – constitutional, legal, and organizational”, participants highlighted the need to address security challenges in the State before the November poll to booster people’s confidence to come and vote on election day.

The Communication Officer of the Centre, Mr Emmanuel Ubajekwe, while reading out the official press release of the media roundtable, assured that the Stop-VAWIP Response Committee is committed to raising awareness, advocating  behavioral change, sensitizing citizens on gender-based violence, tracking and responding to cases of gender-based electoral or political violence, and improving women’s political participation in the State.

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