Abuja women tasked on bridging gender gap

By Stanley Onyekwere

Women in Abuja, the nation’s capital city have enjoined to intensify engagement in meaningful ventures, so as to bolster efforts toward bridging the gender gap in the society.
This call was made by the FCT Minister of State, Dr. Ramatu Tijjani Aliyu, who vowed to protect the rights and dignity of women.
Aliyu, who is also a crusader of women economic empowerment, pledged the FCT Administration’s commitment in ensuring that no woman will be abused in the nation’s capital.
She spoke to newsmen shortly after receiving in audience the management of National Agency for the Prohibition in Persons (NATIP) led by the Director General, Julie Okay-Donli, on a courtesy visit to FCT Administration, recently.
According to her, “The FCTA and the office of the minister has been in the battle front against trafficking in women and sexual abuse.
“In fact, we even have centres in Nyanya, Bwari, Gwako and other places, even in Kuje where we keep victims and even rehabilitate them. After giving them training, we further reunite them with their families and reintegrate them into the larger society.
“We even have orphanages we are also running, but government as you know is a continuous process and we are willing to partner with NATIP to curb woman trafficking. But you know that Nigeria is a very large society and FCT is not a small place.
“So with this collaboration with the existing agencies, we just need human capital, trained skills to implement some of these laws and it will go a long way to curb social menace in the society especially within the Federal Capital Territory ranging from sexual abuse, labour trafficking so on and so forth.
“We do have training centres for women and youth in Nyanya and in these centres, we train them to use the computer on how to improve on their skills.
“We have a large printing press, even though that printing press is broken down, but we are fixing it because it has the capacity to accommodate over 1200 victims and that will go a long way in addressing some of the problems being faced.
“At the end of the training,, we provide them with takeoff grant and starter’s packs. This collaboration with NATIP will go a long way in protecting the rights and dignity of womanhood and victims of sexual abuse.”