The Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, says 110 sex offenders have been convicted.

Ms Tallen said the federal government was committed to implementing the Sex Offender Register to protect girls and women from sexual abuse in Nigeria.

The minister spoke on the sideline at the 66th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at UN headquarters.

“As of February, Nigeria has recorded 646 cases reported, 110 convicted, and 327 cases are still in court. The violence Against Persons Prohibition Act 2015 provides that a register of convicted sexual offenders shall be maintained and accessible to the public,” explained Ms Tallen. I

According to her, the register is domiciled with the National Agency for the Prohibition in Persons (NAPTIP), and there are two other sexual offenders registers in Lagos and Ekiti.

On budgeting to address Gender-Based Violence (GBV), the minister said the 2022 budget was designed to be gender-responsive as ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) were mandated to factor in gender issues in their budget preparation.

“What this means is that the recently approved paternity leave for civil servants will be captured in the 2022 budget, among other gender-responsive issues the MDAs will consider to include in the budget,” the Nigerian minister stated.

She acknowledged that in past budgets, travel and training provisions captured more men than women and that most MDAs “do have crèche for nursing mothers who are expected to resume work while tending to their infants.”

She added, “This is also the first in our history, where MDAs were clearly advised on gender-responsive budgeting. It is hoped that this decision by the President will form part of critical steps in our efforts to distribute resources fairly and reach vulnerable groups of our society.”

In addition, Tallen revealed that since the last CSW, the role and status of women in Nigeria had continued to evolve, adding that women are playing major roles in social and economic activities.

The minister, however, noted that division of labour was still along gender lines.

”Land is communally owned, and women have access to it through their husbands or parents. More recently, however, women are procuring land for their use in their names,” noted the minister. “Women are also central to trade and have enormous opportunities for accumulating wealth and acquiring titles.”

In addition, Ms Tallen said women were not as docile or powerless as contemporary literature tends to portray them in politics.

“This is because the private and public arenas are intertwined. A woman’s ability to control resources and people in a household is at the same time an exercise in public power,” she pointed out. “The most powerful agency of change for the modern woman has been Nigeria’s formal education system, from which a large number of elite women have emerged.”

(NAN)