As Nigeria joins the rest of the world to mark the 2025 International Women’s Day (IWD), the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, has identified four major challenges facing Nigerian women.
Speaking at a media briefing in Abuja on Thursday to flag off the IWD celebrations, Mrs Sulaiman-Ibrahim listed these challenges as legal and policy frameworks, economic empowerment, political representation and leadership, and gender-based violence and social norms.
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This year’s IWD commemoration marks the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action adjudged the most progressive blueprint ever for advancing women’s rights.
2025 International Women’s Day
The IWD anniversary is themed, “For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment.”
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This year’s theme “calls for action that can unlock equal rights, power and opportunities for all and a feminist future where no one is left behind,” the United Nations wrote on its website.
The campaign is also tagged ‘Accelerate Action,’ emphasising the urgency of achieving gender equality.
Challenges
While Nigeria has made “significant progress” by enacting gender-responsive laws such as the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act (VAPP) and the Child Rights Act, a full implementation remains a challenge, the minister said.
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Mrs Sulaiman-Ibrahim noted that 35 out of 36 states have domesticated the VAPP Act, while 34 states have adopted the Child Rights Act. However, she stressed that this is not enough.
“We need full compliance, effective enforcement, and accountability to ensure that the rights enshrined in these laws are a lived reality for every Nigerian woman and girl,” she said.
Mrs Sulaiman-Ibrahim said another challenge confronting Nigerian women is economic empowerment.
“Women drive Nigeria’s informal economy, owning 41 per cent of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs),” she said.
“However, access to finance, markets, and digital literacy remains a barrier to scaling their businesses. More than 94 per cent of women still lack access to formal credit despite their proven ability to reinvest in their families and communities.
“We must close the gender financing gap, expand opportunities in trade, technology, and digital skills, and provide structured support for women entrepreneurs.”
The minister also hinted at the latest empowerment projects embarked upon by the ministry.
“Under Nigeria for Women Project Scale Upproject, which we just commenced, we will be reaching a minimum of 4.5 million women nationwide to bridge the gap,” she said.
“We also launched the MOWA-SARA initiative recently, with the support of WEMA Bank. As we speak today, this skill development programme is ongoing, and the target is 500,000 women.”
The third issue that Nigerian women encounter is gender-based violence and social norms, which must be decisively addressed, said the minister.
She explained that more than 30 per cent of Nigerian women between the ages of 15-49 have experienced physical violence, and one in four girls has been sexually abused before their eighteenth birthday.
Recent GBV cases
Mrs Sulaiman-Ibrahim cited recent cases of gender-based violence, including the deaths of Emrich Effanga in Cross River State, Mutiat Sholola in Ogun State, and Salome Adaidu in Nasarawa State.
She also mentioned a mother of six, allegedly set ablaze by her husband in Anambra State, and a woman in Abuja whose fingers were cut off by her supposed boyfriend.
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“These are stark reminders of the urgent need to sustain the declaration of a state of emergency on gender-based violence embarked upon in 2020 by Nigeria’s Governors Forum in the wake of the high number of such cases during the lockdown of COVID-19,” she noted.
Also, women remain vastly underrepresented in decision-making spaces.
“In our 10th National Assembly, only 4 out of 109 Senators and 17 out of 360 House of Representatives members are women, with 15 states lacking any female representation,” she said.
“This stark imbalance is not reflective of a progressive democracy. We must accelerate efforts toward political inclusion, ensuring that women have a seat at the table – not as tokens, but as equal partners in governance and development.”
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