Nigeria

Gender and (Militarized) Secessionist Movements in Africa: An African Feminist’s Reflections

Citation:

Mougoué, Jacqueline-Bethel Tchouta. 2018. "Gender and (Militarized) Secessionist Movements in Africa: An African Feminist's Reflections." Meridians 17 (2): 338-58.

Author: Jacqueline-Bethel Tchouta Mougoué

Abstract:

Utilizing interdisciplinary and multimethodological approaches, this essay explores women’s roles in buttressing the political cohesion of secessionist movements in postcolonial Africa. It argues that African women have supported the actions of male-dominated secessionist movements in order to garner their own social and political power. Using case studies from Anglophone Cameroon, Western Sahara, Cabinda Province (Angola), and Biafra (Nigeria), the essay historicizes and outlines a new analytical framework that explores women’s multifaceted participation in secessionist movements in modern-day Africa.

Keywords: Gender, secessionism, Cameroon, Cabinda, Western Sahara, Biafra

Topics: Armed Conflict, Secessionist Wars, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Political Participation Regions: Africa, Central Africa, North Africa, West Africa Countries: Angola, Cameroon, Nigeria, Western Sahara

Year: 2018

Saving Nigerian Girls: A Critical Reflection on Girl-Saving Campaigns in the Colonial and Neoliberal Eras

Citation:

George, Abosede. 2018. "Saving Nigerian Girls: A Critical Reflection on Girl-Saving Campaigns in the Colonial and Neoliberal Eras." Meridians 17 (2): 309-24.

Author: Abosede George

Abstract:

This essay discusses girl-saving campaigns in Nigerian history, focusing on the two that have been most extensively documented: the girl hawker project of the early twentieth century, which climaxed with the 1943 passage of the first hawking ban in Nigeria, and the #BringBackOurGirls campaign, which started in 2014 and is still ongoing. Though separated by time and space, in order to inspire salvationist impulses in their respective audiences both campaigns have relied on a gendered notion of imperilment that centers the image of the youthful female body threatened by sexual violence from male aggressors. Yet through its reliance on certain restrictions, gendered and otherwise, the portrait of the vulnerable girl that campaigners outline inadvertently prompts disidentifications as well.

Topics: Age, Youth, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Gender, Girls, Gender Analysis, Gendered Power Relations, Sexual Violence, Male Perpetrators, SV against Women Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Nigeria

Year: 2018

Women and Land in Northern Nigeria: The Need for Independent Ownership Rights

Citation:

Abdullah, Hussaina J., and Aisha Fofana-Ibrahim. 2003. “Women and Land in Northern Nigeria: The Need for Independent Ownership Rights.” In Women and Land in Africa: Culture, Religion and Realizing Women’s Rights, edited by L. Muthoni Wanyeki. London: Zed Books.

Authors: Hussaina J. Abdullah, Aisha Fofana-Ibrahim

Annotation:

Summary: 
"This study is therefore intended to contribute to an understanding of land as it relates to women and as viewed from the human rights paradigm. The main objective is to undertake a critical, empirical study of women's land rights in northern Nigeria, and the manner in which these rights are shaped by religion, tradition and law. The purpose is not only to examine women's rights of access to, ownership of and control over land, including women's inheritance rights, but also to study how religion (canonical and Sharia), tradition and law (customary and non-customary) act and interact to condition the definition and practice of women's land rights. The primary focus is a review of historical practice and an analysis of empirical data on three categories of women (married, divorced, and widowed). Marriage is used as a determining variable in women's land rights because it is the major means by which women and men access land in Africa. However, whereas women's land rights are dependent on their relations with men, men's land rights are not dependent on their relations with women. Moreover, women are threatened with dispossession if divorced or widowed (Small 1997: 46)" (Abdullah and Fofana-Ibrahim 2003, 134).

Topics: Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Religion, Rights, Human Rights, Land Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Nigeria

Year: 2003

Religious Revivalism, Human Rights Activism and the Struggle for Women's Rights in Nigeria

Citation:

Abdullah, Hussaina J. 2000. "Religious Revivalism, Human Rights Activism and the Struggle for Women's Rights in Nigeria." In Beyond Rights Talk and Culture Talk: Comparative Essays on Political Rights and Culture, edited by Mahmood Mamdani, 96-120. Cape Town: David Philip Publishers.

Author: Hussaina J. Abdullah

Annotation:

Summary:
“Within the context of economic crisis, structural adjustment and political authoritarianism which have characterized Nigeria since the 1980s there has been a growth of human rights and civil liberties activism, together with a process of religious revivalism and a rising and institutionalized "State" feminism. From their different positions, the various associations have either shown total disregard for women's rights issues or proved incapable of dealing with them. The struggles of activist women's organizations, such as Women in Nigeria (WIN), which emerged in 1983, have involved the articulation of strategies for responding to the de-politicizing thrust and consequences of "State" feminism/"femocracy", whilst simultaneously attempting to tap potentially positive elements from the process for the benefit of Nigerian women. At another level, they have entailed the broadening of the campaign for women's rights with regard to issues of legal and constitutional reform. International networking has also been employed to advance the interests of Nigerian women, especially as they pertain to the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Furthermore, there has been an attempt by some women's groups, such as the Federation of Muslim Women's Associations in Nigeria (FOMWAN), to use the idiom of religion and contestations over doctrinal interpretation to press the case for reforms. However, the struggles of Nigerian women for change still have to contend with resilient patriarchal structures, which aspects of religious revivalism have tended to reinforce and which the explosion of human rights activism has, so far, been insufficient to challenge significantly” (Abdullah 2000, 162-3).

Topics: Economies, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Governance, Constitutions, Religion, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Nigeria

Year: 2000

The Power of Mixed Messages: Women, Peace, and Security Language in National Action Plans from Africa

Citation:

Hudson, Heidi. 2017. “The Power of Mixed Messages: Women, Peace, and Security Language in National Action Plans from Africa.” Africa Spectrum 52 (3): 3-29.

Author: Heidi Hudson

Abstract:

Against the backdrop of global and continental women, peace, and security discourses, this contribution analyses the gender and women-focused language of national action plans from four African countries (Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, and Uganda), which were drafted with a view to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. I argue that national action plans have the potential to transcend the soft-consensus language of Security Council resolutions because they create new spaces for feminist engagement with policy and practice. The analysis reveals three discursive themes – namely, the making of “womenandchildren,” women civilising war, and making women responsible for preventing gender-based violence. The themes relate to the construction of, respectively, gender(ed) identities, security, and violence. To varying degrees, the plans reflect a combination of predominantly liberal-feminist language interspersed with some examples of critical insight. I conclude that the ambiguous nature of the messages sent out by these plans serves as a reminder that discourses are fragmented and therefore offer an opening for nuanced contextual analyses and implementation.

Keywords: Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Uganda, peace and conflict research, women, women's politics, action programmes/action plans, UN Security Council Resolution (2000-10-31)

Topics: Gender, Women, Gendered Discourses, Gender-Based Violence, Peace and Security, Peacebuilding, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS, UNSCR 1325 Regions: Africa, East Africa, West Africa Countries: Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Uganda

Year: 2017

Mortgaging Women's Lives: Feminist Critiques of Structural Adjustment

Citation:

Sparr, Pamela, ed. 1994. Mortgaging Women's Lives: Feminist Critiques of Structural Adjustment. London: Zed Books

Author: Pamela Sparr

Annotation:

Summary:
This book explores the impact on Third World women of the stringent economic prescriptions of the World Bank and IMF. Introductory chapters explain in non-jargonistic terms exactly what structural adjustment is. These are followed by feminist critiques of its implications, and then a series of carefully chosen case studies examining the specific dimensions of structural adjustment in countries as diverse as Jamaica, Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt, Turkey, Sri Lanka and the Philippines (Summary from WorldCat).
 
Table of Contents:
1. What is structural adjustment?
Pamela Sparr
 
2. Feminist critiques of structural adjustment
Pamela Sparr
 
3. Privatization and the demise of state feminism in Egypt
Mervat F. Hatem
 
4. Ghana: women in the public and informal sectors under the economic recovery programme
Takyiwaa Manuh
 
5. What has export-oriented manufacturing meant for Turkish women?
Nilüfer Çagatay, Günseli Berik
 
6. Structural adjustment policies, industrial development and women in Sri Lanka
Swarna Jayaweera
 
7. The dynamics of economic change and gender roles: export cropping in the Philippines
Maria Sagrario Floro
 
8. Nigeria: agricultural exports and compensatory schemes -- rural women's production resources and quality of life
Patience Elabor-Idemudia
 
9. Hitting where it hurts most: Jamaican women's livelihoods in crisis
Joan French
 
10. Banking on women: where do we go from here?
Pamela Sparr
 

Topics: Agriculture, Development, Globalization, Privatization Regions: Africa, MENA, West Africa, Americas, Caribbean countries, Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Egypt, Jamaica, Nigeria, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Turkey

Year: 1994

An Analysis of the Role of Women in Curbing Energy Poverty in Nigeria

Citation:

Abdullahi, Adama A. 2017. “An Analysis of the Role of Women in Curbing Energy Poverty in Nigeria.” Journal of Sustainable Development Studies 10 (2): 45-60

Author: Adama A. Abdullahi

Abstract:

Despite Nigeria’s abundance of fossil and renewable energy resources, Nigerians still experience acute energy poverty; they either lack access to modern energy sources or have to cope with inadequate supply and poor quality. Close to 95 million people are fully reliant on traditional woodstoves for cooking.  Poor access to energy is directly affecting livelihoods, lowering quality of life and hurting the economy. Poor energy access is the root of energy poverty, it leads to drudgery, greater health risks, severely undermines health, inhibits education, limits livelihood opportunities, and reduces the chances for the poor to rise out of poverty, ultimately diminishing the world’s chances to successfully achieve the SDGs by 2030. Even though global efforts are headed in the right direction to end energy poverty, the rate of interventions is far behind the population growth rate and calls for dramatic accelerations in mobilizing resources to increase access to renewable energy alternatives.  

This study explores and emphasises that women are not only a special interest group in using renewable energy to alleviate energy poverty in Nigeria; they are the mainstream users and often producers of energy, it has become glaring that women are the fastest growing cohort of entrepreneurs and business owners in many developing countries especially Nigeria. Without their involvement, renewable energy projects risk being inappropriate and failing. Energy researchers who will leave women out of energy research and analysis will be failing to understand a large part of energy consumption and production all over the world. Women are a key resource in the energy service delivery process though underutilized. They are primarily viewed only as energy consumers even while it is the women that experience energy poverty much more severely than men. The result shows that there is great opportunity for collaboration with women on community energy projects that can contribute to ending energy poverty in Nigeria. Also there is opportunity in development that is yet to be harnessed in women’s entrepreneurship & potential impacts for the household and agricultural energy sector in Nigeria because evidently financial liberation of women has a greater impact on the community than any other demographic.

Keywords: energy poverty, renewable energy, women and energy, gender sensitive energy practices, energy access

Topics: Poverty, Women, Infrastructure, Energy Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Nigeria

Year: 2017

Structural Adjustment and African Women Farmers

Citation:

Gladwin, Christina H, ed. 1991. Structural Adjustment and African Women Farmers. Gainesville: University of Florida Press: Center for African Studies, University of Florida.

Author: Christina H. Gladwin

Annotation:

Summary: 
Focuses on the debates surrounding structural lending programmes and the effect they have on women in Africa. It questions the conventional dependency model and provides some counter-evidence that the economic position of women in societies with freer market policies has improved (Summary from WorldCat).
 
Table of Contents:
1. Structural adjustment and structural transformation in sub-Saharan Africa
Stephen O'Brien
 
2. Women, structural adjustment, and transformation: some lessons and questions from the African experience
Uma Lele
 
3. Getting priorities right: structural transformation and strategic notions
Bruce F. Johnston
 
4. Policies to overcome the negative effects of structural adjustment programs on African female-headed households
Jean M. Due
 
5. Impact of structural adjustment programs on Women and their households in Bendel and Ogun States, Nigeria
Patience Elabor-Idemudia
 
6. Women and structural adjustment in Zaire
Brooke Schoef et al.
 
7. Impact of structural adjustment programs on rural women in Tanzania
Ruth Meena
 
8. Fertilizer subsidy removal programs and their potential impacts on women farmers in Malawi and Cameroon
Christina H. Gladwin
 
9. Women traders in Ghana and the structural adjustment program
Gracia Clark and Takyiwaa Manuh
 
10. Ideology and political economy of gender: women and land in Nso, Cameroon
Miriam Goheen
 
11. Women's agricultural work in a multimodal rural economy: Ibarapa District, Oyo State, Nigeria
Jane I. Guyer with Olukemi Idowu
 
12. Structural transformation and its consequences for Orma women pastoralists
Jean Ensminger
 
13. New women's organizations in Nigeria: one response to structural adjustment
Lillian Trager and Clara Osinulu
 
14. Role of home economics agents in rural development programs in northern Nigeria: impacts of structural adjustment
Comfort B. Olayiwole
 
15. Curriculum planning for women and agricultural households: the case of Cameroon
Suzanna Smith, Barbara Taylor
 
16. Women farmers, structural adjustment, and FAO's plan of action for integration of women in development
Anita Spring and Vicki Wilde.
 

Topics: Agriculture, Economies, Poverty, Households, International Financial Institutions, Political Economies, Rights, Land Rights Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa Countries: Cameroon, Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania

Year: 1991

Male Bias in the Development Process

Citation:

Elson, Diane, ed. 1990. Male Bias in the Development Process. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Author: Diane Elson

Annotation:

Table of Contents:
1. Male bias in the development process - an overview
 
2. Women, work and property in the Chinese peasant household of the 1980s
Diane Elson
 
3. Changing gender relations in Zimbabwe - the case of individual family resettlement areas
Delia Davin
 
4. The limits to women's independent careers - gender in the formal and informal sectors in Nigeria
Susie Jacobs
 
5. Informal sector or female sector? - gender bias in urban labour market models
Carolyne Dennis
 
6. Male bias and women's work in Mexico's border industries
Alison MacEwan Scott
 
7. Male bias in macroeconomics - the case of structural adjustment
Ruth Pearson
 
8. Overcoming male bias
Diane Elson

Topics: Development, Gendered Power Relations, Households, International Financial Institutions Regions: Africa, East Africa, West Africa, Americas, Central America, Asia, East Asia Countries: China, Mexico, Nigeria, Zimbabwe

Year: 1990

Amnesty, Patriarchy and Women: The ‘Missing Gender’ Voice in Post-Conflict Niger Delta Region of Nigeria

Citation:

Umejesi, Ikechukwu. 2014. “Amnesty, Patriarchy and Women: The ‘Missing Gender’ Voice in Post-Conflict Niger Delta Region of Nigeria.” Gender & Behaviour 12 (1): 6223–37.

Author: Ikechukwu Umejesi

Abstract:

On 25 June 2009, the Federal Government of Nigeria declared amnesty for all armed groups fighting against the Nigerian state and oil producing companies in the Niger Delta region. The amnesty project spelt out a triple program of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) of the militant groups. In other words, the program was designed to end the conflict and reintegrate the militants into the society through an economic empowerment process. While the amnesty program was hailed as "reconciliatory", "compensatory" and a "sustainable solution" towards achieving lasting peace in the restive region, the program seems to benefit only men who constitute the bulk of the militants and their commanders. It does not take into consideration the socio-ecologic and economic losses suffered by women throughout the course of the struggle. This paper asks: where are the women? Is the amnesty program an empowerment project or an entrenchment of patriarchy in the Niger Delta region? Using both primary and secondary sources, this article examines these questions as a way of understanding government's amnesty policy and its gender dynamics.

Keywords: Niger Delta, conflict, amnesty, women, patriarchy, Gender, militants

Topics: Armed Conflict, DDR, Economies, Economic Inequality, Extractive Industries, Gender, Women, Gender Analysis, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Gender Equality/Inequality, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Non-State Armed Groups, Peacebuilding Regions: Africa, West Africa Countries: Nigeria

Year: 2014

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