BENIN CITY - Lift Above Poverty Organisation, (LAPO), a leading development and poverty focused organization on Monday in Been City, at its quarterly dialogue session focused on the theme: ‘Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities: Progress For All.”

In his address, LAPO’s Executive Director, Mr. Godwin Ehigiamusoe whose address was delivered by the Chief Operating Officer (COO) LAPO, Mr. Moses Ehigiamusoe, noted that the challenges of most democracies in the world was centred on how to secure and guarantee equal rights and opportunities for all citizens, irrespective of creed, race, and circumstances .

He remarked that women were at the fringes of society and worse hit by the deficit of equal right and opportunities in Nigeria, adding that even when they work so hard to feed, cloth and educate their children, the Nigerian society has continued to marginalise them.

Delivery her paper on the theme of the dialogue, a law teacher at the Benson Idahosa University, Benin City, Barrister (Mrs.) Stella O. Idehen posited that despite the many anti-discriminatory laws such as Female Genital Mutilation (Prohibition) Laws 1999; Widowhood Rites Laws; protection of the Rights of People Living With AIDS; The Child Rights Laws, Council Code Amendment on Prostitution and Human Trafficking laws, there appears to be no concrete steps for the effective implementation of these laws.

She asserted that the empowerment of women in the context of gender equality has not been vigorously pursued by most Edo women, as the traditional concept in most societies and in Edo State where women were treated a little better than beast of burden still prevailed.

Barr. Idehen identified the different forms of discrimination against; based on citizenship, Discrimination of people living with HIV/AID and discrimination based on quota system. She however, concluded that refusal to allow equal rights and opportunities in whatever area impedes the social, political, civil and economic progress of the society.