DESPITE efforts by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Federal Government to reduce death caused by HIV/AIDS and malaria in the country, experts have said that smoke is the third highest killer with an alarming figure of 95,300 Nigerian women dying yearly from cooking.
Speaking on ?Elimination of gender Violence Against Women, the Senior Gender Advisor, Nigeria Infrastructure Advisory Facility (NIAF) Hajiya Amina Salihu said earlier today in Minna at the International Women?s Day organized by the Niger State Ministry of Gender Affairs and Social Development that ?more woman suffer from smoke related sicknesses such as cancer, bronchitis and blindness in Nigeria due to lack of oxygen.?
Hajiya Salihu said ?the exposure to dangerous cooking equipments and non availability of clean cooking energy is attributed to the increase in female deaths in Nigeria; cooking smoke is the third highest killer after HIV/AIDS with 95,300 women dying yearly in Nigeria according to World Health Organization (WHO) data.?
?We have taken it as a very serious advocacy issue because nobody would think that cooking can be very dangerous, but it turns out that if a woman cooks in a certain way, it can harm her because of the smoke that is inhaled in the process especially sometimes with her child on the back. There is no adequate oxygen to breathe in and this causes a lot of health harms.?
?The worst of it is death; it can also cause cancer, bronchitis, or blindness. So, what we are trying to do is not to dwell on the problem but to look at the solution because everyone has to eat. But can we cook in a way that does not deplete our environment, cut down all our trees so that we can save our environment? Can we cook in a way that does not kill our women and our children? That is why we are working on the clean cook stove energy which gives us options. If you want to cook with gas, kerosene, wood, coal, cow dung or corn cobs especially in the villages then it can reduce the risk of death?.
She however called on men to provide better alternatives for women and be supportive to their wives in ensuring that the death toll reduces because according to her ?if the woman dies, that home suffers?.
Earlier in her welcome address, the Commissioner for Gender Affairs and Social Development Hajiya Hassana Adamu said the government is doling out two million, eight hundred and twenty thousand naira (N2,820,000) as take off grant to 176 participants from the women multipurpose centre and 56 blind participants from the three senatorial zones in the state.
Enakeno is a journalist and television producer
