Wimbiz launches advocacy campaign to bridge gender gap in legal profession
By Eberechi Obinagwam
Women in Management, Business, and Public Service, Wimbiz has launched its latest advocacy campaign for women in law, aimed at raising awareness and driving meaningful conversations within the legal profession.
At a recent media parley in Lagos before the launch, Omowunmi Akingbohungbe, executive director, decried the low representation of women in legal profession and the organisation’s move to close the gap.
She said the initiative was part of Wimbiz’s 2025 focus on promoting women in law, an initiative that came up after identifying some key major gaps in the law sector at a kick off webinar for the year aimed at sensitizing business women in Nigeria, UK, and across the globe on opportunities that existed when it comes to cross-border trade opportunities.
Reports from International Bar Association, IBA, said women make up about 4% of the 700 senior advocates, numbering around 40 women in Nigeria.
Decrying about the low representation of women in legal profession, Omowunmi, said it’s a huge gap, hence the advocacy campaign.
She said: “We are trying to address these gaps and get professionals in that space to amplify the gaps and also sensitize women, upcoming lawyers and existing ones, on how they can attain this leadership position.
We started that initiative, first of all, by this virtual webinar where we had the justice here in Nigeria as well as a senior advocate come to talk about their story and journey as far as getting to these positions, the barriers they faced and how they were able to navigate it.”
She said their target audience are female legal professionals, law students, and aspiring leaders in the legal field, adding that the program will provide mentorship and guidance from senior legal professionals, offer leadership training to develop essential skills, facilitate networking opportunities to build a strong support system and empower participants to break through the glass ceiling in the legal profession.
“And the expected outcome is that for each mentee on this mentoring program, they have a work plan that they want to run with maybe for the next five years or 10 years as a case maybe in attaining the position that they aspire to be. It’s a three month program and a weekly session. It’s free and it’s happening virtually, she noted.
They also identified the gap in construction sector, saying that very few women are in leadership positions when it comes to construction. “At the International Women’s Day Advocacy campaign, they were able to highlight the gaps that exist, partnered with the construction sector and sensitize women. Most women don’t even bother to go into certain professions because they feel they don’t stand a chance.”
Reeling out its achievements, she said Wimbiz have been able to inspire and empower over 340,000 women, with a robust platform of over 3,000 life members and associates spread across 23 countries, not just in Nigeria. “We have a platform with global acceptance and global reach.
We have mentored and trained women, over 1,700 of them, still on leadership skills, preparing women for board positions and also how they can generally make a difference in the areas that they operate in. We have also facilitated grants. We gave grants to business women after their business pitch at our annual conference last year.”
She also noted that the Big Sister program for the year will be happening in Akwa Ibom, Kaduna and Jos.
Stretching out its commitments in supporting women, WIMBIZ Board Chair, Bisi Adeyemi, said they are montering the situation of Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan’s case at the National Assembly and would speak up as soon as they see injustice going on.
