Media play important roles in society. They report on current events, provide frameworks for interpretation, mobilise citizens with regard to various issues, reproduce predominant culture and society, and entertain. As such, the media can be an important factor in the promotion of gender equality and ensuring that women are at the decision making table.

It is on this note that Adaora Sydney Jack, the founder of Gender Strategy Advancement International (GSAI), a women-led non- profit organisation working in the area of women’s rights and equal opportunity for women, stressed the need to amplify the strength of women rather than tell the stories of women from the point of pity and charity.

Breaking barriers

Speaking on how the journey began, Sydney-jack said: “I’m passionate about gender and public policy, research and mainstreaming women across sectors. I grew up in a family of feminists, I consider my dad a feminist. My mom was a Commissioner for Women Affairs in 2009. I watched my mom growing up, championing conversation around women. She is very domesticated and she said one of the things she would want to achieve is to see more women in power.

“The passion really came when I went into the media space and I saw that very few women had media ownership; they are very few women that own media houses and they have also made the licensing process very difficult whereby, it is highly expensive and what I also saw was that even in our issues, most of the priority and dominant editorial boards like the Guild of Editors and I would love to see that barrier break in the media.

We do not have inclusive journalism and that means women stories are either told last or from a negative angle.” She reels out her roles in promoting gender equality as: “I decided to start from policy making even though I have written quite a number of books. So, I ran in 2019 for the state assembly to represent my constituency all with the vision to bridge the gap and bring more girls into the space. I ran but the technicality of the election hindered me from emerging as announced.

After that, the then governor appointed me as a special adviser on information and that was when I remembered that you don’t have to be in an elective position to make change happen so I started using my office to reach out to more women for mentorship programmes, I even went to the prison to see female prisoners and find out why they were there all for me to find out that most of them were there representing people.

“For example, sales girls picked from shops instead of the shop owner. I started to raise an issue in the government on the rehabilitation of juveniles in prison. I led the delegation to the Federal Government to get the list of those who were returned during repatriation from South Africa and had them given alternative shelter in the state.

Voices

“Those were the voices that began to emerge. One of the things I was also looking at was subsidising mortgages for journalists. These are some of the things that were done because we didn’t spend a lot of time in the office because the court denounced that victory and when I got back to broadcasting proper, I realised that those were institutional experiences; we needed to understand what the calling was. “Using those experiences that I had gotten, I came back to the industry well equipped and exposed as well as ready to really speak to the issues from an experiential point of view.

I went into research proper, looking at how I can advance women’s rights which now gave birth to Gender Strategy Advancement International (GSAI) to increase advocacy for women’s rights and to create an atmosphere that gives women the leverage to speak out so that they can get gender justice.” On women with disabilities, she said: “The space for visibility for women with disabilities is so small and always unattended to and that for me was a priority because I realised that they are intelligent and remarkable women but their stories were not told the right way. We were telling the story from a place of pity and charity rather than from a place of strength and visibility for their capacity.

“So, those were the things that I looked at: the stories of inclusive journalism that showcase more of those who are progressing and that led to GSAI. In the story of women, there are women with a minority; that is the people with disabilities (PWDs) and sometimes, disability is not physical so we focus on people with physical disabilities. “Meanwhile, there is also mental disability. Yes, we have challenges but we have to make it a priority to tell our story from a very positive point of view.” Speaking on the five gender bills, the GSAI boss said her organisation was part of the protest.

“Remember that Nigerian women marched to the National Assembly in protest and held down that place for two weeks. My organisation was also part of the protest and one of the things we demanded then was five over five but because of the consistency and anger expressed by the Nigerian women, the National Assembly were able to review three and failed to pass the rest. We have been having town hall meetings and we have come to the realisation that we don’t have to wait for legislators to pass those bills. It can become an Executive Bill whereby the President can say these five bills are important to us.

I passed it and sent it to the National Assembly to adopt it as our bill so you don’t need enforcement but it’s already a motion and it is stepped down to institutions to be domesticated. I want to be able to go to sleep and remember that my space in Nigeria can give the next generation of girls the ability to become all that they truly want to be: to dream big and not be marginalised because of their gender.”

Minister

She commended the Minister of Women Affairs, Uju Kenedy Ohanenye for empowering women with tricycle and sewing machines. “Whatever empowers a woman economically is a good initiative. I’m not only looking at facts from the figure of the policy narrative. I am also looking at the financial inclusion and how she has domesticated it. Yes, the process may not have been all awesome but I can tell you that it has created jobs and is able to open up the space for women who don’t feel comfortable riding in men-driven tricycles. It has also made women feel safer looking at the rate of insecurity in the country.”

She reminded the government that the transition stage for the PWD act will soon end. “I am sending a reminder again because we have talked about these at the conference and several forums. I am ashamed that I have to remind the government of its duty to the minority and the vulnerable community that they swore an oath to protect and provide for. I am ashamed that in thinking of passing that bill and making it an act that they are thinking that it stops there. I am even more ashamed that the legislators have not called for accountability in the space in terms of actualising the dreams of this community of persons.

“Persons With disability deserve dignity, respect and honour because they contribute to electing leaders in this country and for that mandate alone they deserve the right for their mandate to count and so I am reminding the Federal Gov- ernment that they should please honour their bond and that bond is to institutionalise the implementation of the act across all the institutions. Let there be institutions that are able to accommodate persons with disabilities to be able to access buildings, hospitals, cinema houses, restaurant, among others.”

Money politics

She identified money politics and lack of a system that enables women to thrive especially with none implementation of women’s policies as challenges restricting women from attaining decision- making tables. “What I think is happening is deliberate shrinking of spaces. If the government had the political will, the parliament would have passed that bill and increased the number of appointive positions for women. We want women on the decision- making tables at the legislature and heading committees and not just as- sisting,” she argued.