The National Bureau of Statistics has said that despite efforts to promote women participation in the politics and decision making, female membership in the National Assembly remains low at 5.8 per cent in Nigeria.
The NBS made this known in a statistical report on Women and Men in Nigeria for 2018 posted on its website.
The bureau said women had continued to record low representation at all tiers of governance although they constitute almost half of the electorate.
It said males constituted 94.2 per cent of the members of the National Assembly in the periods from 1999 to 2015 (on average) while female participation remained low at 5.8 per cent.
At federal courts, it said 29.4 per cent of Judges were female while 70.6 per cent were male from 2011 to 2016.
The bureau said State Assemblies also recorded similar low participation rates for women at 5.2 per cent while men occupied 94.8 per cent of available positions from 1999 to 2015.
At the local government level from 1999 to 2015, it said nine per cent of chairpersons were females while 91 per cent were males.
In addition, the report said women also constituted just 5.9 per cent of Councilors compared with 94.1 per cent for men.
Meanwhile, the report said violence and crimes against women, had been on increase, according to data received from the Nigerian Police Force and the Ministry of Justice.
According to the report, rape cases in Nigeria have been on the rise.
“The percentage of rape incidence for girls was 63.04 per cent in 2015, which increased to 72.13 per cent in 2016 but decreased to 69.33 per cent in 2017.
“Over 90 per cent of suspects arrested for drug-related offences in 2015, 2016 and 2017 (92.7, 93.5 and 93.8 per cent) were men while women made up 7.3, 6.5 and 6.2 per cent of the arrests for the same years.”
For life expectancy at birth, the report said it depicted the average number of years a newborn child was expected to live given the current levels of mortality in a country.
In 2016, it said life expectancy for males was 47 years, 51 years for female and 49 years for both.
On education, the report said the literacy rate among female age 15 to 24 years interviewed was 59.3 per cent and 70.9 per cent for their male counterpart in 2016.
Available data from the Federal Ministry of Education showed that the enrolment rate of school-aged girls in primary education was 48.6 per cent in 2014.
It said the figure decreased to 47.4 per cent in 2015 and slightly increased to 47.5 per cent in 2016.
In addition, it said the completion rate for girls in primary, junior and senior secondary school in 2016 were 64.8 per cent, 38.9 per cent and 28.7 per cent respectively.
(NAN)