Abstract
The issue of protection of rights of women in Nigeria has been a thing of great concern and attracted global attention. It is a long time agitation and not just a recent development. Majority of the women folk suffer one form of discrimination or another for the reason of being women and wrongful perception of the society that women belong to a subordinate class. The research work examined the laws relating to the protection of Right of Women under the Nigerian Legal Systems and their applicability in practical term. Although the rules governing the rights and empowerment of women are clearly spelt out under both Common and Islamic Laws, the problem on which this research focused its investigation is: To what extent have these laws been implemented? The work studied and analyzed the discriminations suffered by women in Nigeria in view of the existence of rights of women enshrined in the various Nigeria laws, and determined legislative and other measures to be taken to deal with the problems in order to improve the enjoyment of their rights.
The work examined the rights of women from Pre-Colonial and Colonial Nigeria with emphasis on Post Colonial period. The aim of examining the Pre-Colonial period is to assess the protection of rights of women and the rights available to them before the advent of colonial era as a foundation for the subsequent periods. In colonial period, this research work found that women began to gain more rights than it used to be. In the post colonial period, the work examined and assessed the progress made or otherwise in the area of protection of the rights of women from independence to date. It was found that the major development that occurred at this period was the inclusion in the Constitution of a chapter on Fundamental Human Rights and subsequently a Chapter on Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principals of State Policy, both of which enshrined the rights of every citizen including women.
Also the work found that apart from the Nigeria constitution, which enshrined the rights of women, there are other numerous international and regional treaties, which elaborated women’s rights. Nigeria was found to be a signatory to most of these treaties. The country was also found to have gone further to domesticate some of the provisions of the treaties in our local laws. In spite of these, this research work found that discrimination of women in Nigeria has not ended due to the existence of a wide gap between the provisions for the legal protection of the rights of women on the one hand and the reality of discrimination,. Furthermore, the work realized that the rules relating to the protection of rights of women are well articulated in the Qu’ran and the Hadith, due to some human factors however, there was a decline in respect of the deserving honour due to the Muslim female members of the society.
In view of the above the work recommended constitutional and other Statutory safeguard for the implementation of the rights of women, legal reforms to enhance the present state of the law in relation to the protection of rights of women and the need to improve on the general level of women’s education.
CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.0.0: Introduction:
The problems of oppression, exploitation, discrimination and subjugation of women are neither new phenomena, nor peculiar to Nigeria. They are global problems. It appears that the majorities of womenfolk suffer one form of discrimination, exploitation, oppression or the other probably because they are women and are therefore regarded as members of a “subordinate” class. This research work examined the question of protection of rights of women under Nigeria’s plural legal system, from pre-colonial period to the present day, and assessed the implementation and effectiveness of the legal provisions which protect the rights of women. It also examined the extent to which women have benefited from such legal protections.
1.1.0: Background to the study:
Nigeria is a signatory to most of the International instruments on Women’s Rights, especially The Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)1, The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights2 and the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa3 (hereinafter called African Women’s Protocol). The country has also gone further to domesticate some of the provisions of the African Charter in the 1999
1 Adopted 18 Dec. 1979, entered into force 3 Sep. 1981, G.A Res. 34/180, 34 UN GAOR, supp.(No 46), UN Doc. A/34/46, at 193 (1979), reprinted in 19 ILM 33 (1980).
2 Adopted 27 June 1981, entered into force 21 Oct. 1986, O.A.U. Doc. CAB/LEG/67/3/Rev.5, reprinted in ILM 58 (1982); 7 HRLJ 403 (1986).
3 Adopted by the Conference of Heads of State and Government M3aputo-Mozambique 11 July 2003, came into force on 25 November, 2005.
Constitution4. However, despite these provisions in our laws for the protection of women’s rights, there has not been commensurate improvement in the protection of the rights of women. There appears to be a gap between the existence of laws pertaining to the rights of women and their implementation in practical terms. This work therefore examined the problem of the gap between legal protections of the rights of women on the one hand and the reality of discrimination, subjugation and exploitation of women on the other hand. To this end, several instances of discrimination against women, which affect the development of the womenfolk, were examined in this work.
1.2.0: Objectives of study:
Nigeria is a heterogeneous society. It consists of multi - religious and multi - ethnic groups. As a result issues arising from the study cut across the various legal systems that have direct impact on the rights of women in Nigeria. Consequently the study did a research in the following areas:
1) An analysis of some discriminatory practices suffered by women in Nigeria in the light of the existence of women’s rights as enshrined in the various Nigerian laws i.e. Statutory, Customary and Islamic laws.
2) An Examination of the laws protecting the right of women who are the victims of such discrimination, and the extent of application of these laws.
3) An Examination of the status of women under Islamic law with a view to determining whether the prevailing societal practices conform to the Islamic injunctions.
4) A determination of legislative and other measures that are needed to deal with the problems that threaten the protection of rights of women in Nigeria.
4 See Section 12 of the 1999 Constitution.
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