For Nigerian Women (and Girls), It Will Take More Than YouWin. By ZAINAB SANDAH

Except for when the camera generally sweeps through the Federal Executive Council seating, you hardly see or hear from Hajiya Zainab Maina, the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development. That is, until she was recently reported by Daily Trust as saying that ‘the YouWin program is aimed at facilitating women’s transition from informal to formal sector of economic development’. (Thank God it’s that simple!) But perhaps not so, and Honourable Minister underestimates the daily challenges being faced by women and girls across the country and needs reminding why empowering 6,000 (or 1,200?) out of 80 million women, 54 million of whom are rural and mired in backbreaking and unskilled labour should not presuppose an automatic facilitation of transition to formal sector of economic development.