A non-governmental agency under the aegis of Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC) in Nigeria has called for rights-based approach to development and women empowerment as they share global rights experiences among their counterpart youths in other countries.
Speaking during the programme organised by YEAC, Nigeria, the Executive Director, YEAC, Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface, stressed that a human rights-based approach (HRBA) to development and women empowerment is what is needed in Nigeria.
The organisation made this demand in Port Harcourt, recently, during an “Individual Plan Implementation for Putting Global Rights Connection (GRC) Learning Experience into Action with One Million Youth Volunteers Network of Human Rights Defenders and Promoters in the Niger Delta” meeting.
The Executive Director, Fyneface, while sharing his learning experience gained from participation in the Equitas, Canada’s International Human Rights Training Programme, online version, tagged “Global Rights Connection (GRC) 2021,” expressed the need for participation of youths, men, women and persons with disabilities from Rivers and other States in the Niger Delta, so that they would be fully empowered.
Such empowerment, he said, would in turn transcend to the development of the area.
On Gender and Human rights-Based approach, Fyneface said: “Gender being a social construct should not be seen as solely referring to women alone, but men as well.
“Gender in this sense refers to girls, young women, the elderly, the blind, deaf, dumb and members of the Lesbian Gay, Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) community as well as those with other disabilities and the physically challenged with same thing applying to the male folks on the other hand”, he explained.
The Executive Director backed his arguments on gender equality using the impact of COVID-19 on women with short videos of the United Nations Secretary General, Antonio Gutteres, and former Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, while calling on the government to create more job opportunities for women to cushion the impact of COVID-19 on their families and households.
”The gender assigned to anybody at birth should not dictate who we are, what we think we can do, and what we think we cannot do, because of our sexes because gender equality is fundamental”, he said.
Fyneface also stated that a peaceful and serene environment would be achieved in the society if the human rights-based approach, which ensures inclusion, with no one being left behind, is adopted in all development projects.
According to him, the crisis in many Niger Delta communities is as a result of the neglect of the human rights-based approach to development, which prioritizes total inclusion, including persons with disabilities.
He further demonstrated graphically the learning experience with other participants from around the world during the 10 weeks programme, lasted from October 4 to December 10, 2021, the International Human Rights Day, which witnessed various interesting topics of learning and discussions.
He emphasised that the module practically demonstrates concerns between development and human rights in development projects and how to apply the elements of human rights-based approach in development through stakeholder mapping and different contexts for inclusiveness.
