It ’ s about harnessing the talent of the other fifty percent of the other gender to ensure there is adequate representation . It ’ s about children protection as women are the principal nurturers and they need to understand the world from a bigger and wider perspective so that they can improve the quality of production be it human or crop .
Technology will also serve as a big step towards enhancing women empowerment . This will create an end to end platform where women can share , trade and exchange talents to develop one another . Access to education and information will be driven through technology and the interconnection will ensure that barriers of mental and physical infrastructure will be overcome .
The top most barrier to Women Empowerment lies in Gender Based Violence as this remains one of the key challenges that deny women a role in the center stage and yet it is considered cultural in some societies . It instills fear and this creates inability to create .
GBV should be strongly condemned and punished consistently to set the right behavior towards women . Reporting these cases should be mandatory . The police officers handling these cases need to be consistently trained because most of these cases are treated as ‘ normal cultural occurrences ’. So often you ’ ll hear people including women saying , ‘ I cannot interfere with matters of a wife and husband , it ’ s their war ’. As preposterous as this may sound , a lot of crime and women disempowerment lies in that statement sometimes leading to death .
There is also stigma that comes with women who are technically empowered through education and financial capability . From a lot of research and experiences , a lot of women at the top are being abused both physically and emotionally be it in the corporate or Government bodies but they stay mum because their status in society does not allow them to go to a police station and report the physical abuse . They will have a black eye which they will attribute to a fall or some random reason yet they were punched because they worked over-time to feed or pay school fees for the kids . This abuse of the so called empowered women is at a crisis level and is lying low like a cancer which will only be discovered too late in the day .
The private sector needs to protect women empowerment through counselling and advising them that as they rise , there are pertinent dangers to their new roles including being pulled down using crude methods . This should also be addressed in political positions as the women who flash on the TV ’ s daily advocating for human rights might also be getting abused themselves and they have no outlet .
It is an oxymoron that women empowerment is also a challenge in itself as women at the top have been set for standards that they cannot meet due to the uneven ground they play . Women empowerment is a process not a transaction . Women who are stepping on the other side must empower others by creating a path for fostering inclusive and supportive environments . Educate a girl today and empower a society .
Pauline Warui is the Founder of East Africa Customer Care Centre . You can commune with her on this or related matters via email at : PWarui69 @ gmail . com .