Patience Ogbodo-Iwuagwu

Bauchi – Over 60 percent of educated women in the northern part of the country do not have access to the Internet, claims Ya’u Zakari Ya’u, the Executive Director, Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD).

Zakari Ya’u stated this on Monday during a stakeholders’ meeting on the report of research on Women and Use of Internet in Northern Nigeria, held at Professor Iya Abubakar Community Resource Centre (CRC), Bauchi.

He said the research recently carried out by the centre showed that the number of women does not access Internet thereby making them technologically and socially disadvantaged compared to their male counterparts.

Zakari Ya’u explained that the survey conducted in Bauchi and Kano states enumerated the factors hindering northern women from using the Internet to include inadequate infrastructure, computer illiteracy, bad perception about the Internet as well as religious and cultural concerns, among others.

He said some clerics and husbands discourage women in the region from browsing the Internet and joining the social networks chat rooms for fearing that their wives may lose privacy, get exposed to undue sexual harassment or visit unwholesome sites that could corrupt them.

Zakari Ya’u assured that CITAD would soon embark on awareness campaigns in the area on the significance of the Internet and its enormous benefits to bridge the gap.

Also speaking, Hon. Maryam Garba Bagel, the only female member of the Bauchi State House of Assembly who served as chairperson of the occasion said, “It is not a taboo for housewives to use Internet or social media because they could get useful information and knowledge that would add value to their lives,” adding that women might even learn how to cook certain foods on the Internet.

She promised to present proposal to the state government through the Ministry of Women Affairs to establish computer training centres in parts of the state to teach women the basic knowledge of computer operations to enable them access the Internet like their counterparts in advanced nations.