In Nigeria, lower house rescinds its rejection of three constitutional gender equality amendments after protests

Nigeria’s lower house of parliament has rescinded its decision on three bills that it discarded at a constitutional amendment session. The decision [...] was a volte-face on parliament’s March 1 decision to reject the proposed bills. It will now reconsider the bills in a month when it reconvenes for another parliamentary session. One of the amendments was to grant citizenship to foreign-born husbands of Nigerian women; the Nigerian constitution already confers automatic citizenship on foreign-born wives of Nigerian men. Another would have given a woman the right to become indigenes of their husband’s state after five years of marriage. The third provision was to assign 35 percent of legislative seats to women, as well as reserve 35 percent of political party leadership, for women. The parliamentary decision came hours after women protested across three states and the commercial capital of Lagos, on International Women’s Day. It was the second such protest within a week.
Read the full article here: Al Jazeera