Economic empowerment remains the strongest safeguard for women’s freedom, dignity, and protection from abuse in Nigeria. This message was emphatically reinforced at the 2025 graduation ceremony of the WELA Vocational Training College, where 17 beneficiaries successfully completed the ninth edition of WELA’s skills acquisition programme in Lagos.
The event, held to commemorate International Human Rights Day, was themed “Building Lives, Restoring Hope,” and brought together human rights advocates, civil society leaders, and development practitioners.
Speaking at the ceremony, the Founder of Women Empowerment and Legal Aid (WELA), Mrs. Funmi Falana, SAN, drew from WELA’s decades of advocacy and litigation experience to underscore a critical truth: access to justice is often meaningless without economic independence.
“Many women endure oppression and domestic violence because they are economically dependent. The fear of losing financial support keeps them silent,” she noted.
Mrs. Falana emphasised that economic empowerment is not merely a support tool but a prerequisite for women to assert their rights and escape abusive situations. This philosophy underpins WELA’s vocational training and empowerment programmes, which are designed to provide practical skills, tools, and pathways to financial independence.
Human rights activist Mr. Omoyele Sowore, who also addressed the audience, criticised systemic governance failures that have left vulnerable populations without access to basic services. He observed that non-governmental organisations have increasingly been compelled to fill these gaps.
“In a country where government has failed, NGOs are now the ones providing food, water, electricity, and sanitation,” he stated, describing attempts to tax NGOs as misguided.
Delivering the keynote address, child rights advocate and Founder of CEE-HOPE Foundation, Ms. Betty Abah, reinforced the central theme of the event, stressing that empowerment must accompany advocacy to produce real change.
“Advocacy without empowerment does not change lives,” she said, describing WELA’s vocational programme as a concrete and measurable intervention against poverty, abuse, and systemic inequality.
Through its College of Vocational Training, Women Empowerment and Legal Aid continues to demonstrate that economic empowerment is a powerful human rights tool—one that restores dignity, builds resilience, and gives women the freedom to choose safety, justice, and self-determination.
Source: Vanguard Newspaper