Social-political marginalization of women in rivers state: The role of the vapp act of 2015

The Violence Against Person Prohibition (VAPP) Act 2015 was enacted in response to the third goal of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which was to promote gender equality, women empowerment and protect women from social, economic and political marginalization. In this work, the VAPP Act was examined on whether or not it sufficiently deals with the issue of the social and political marginalization of women in Rivers State. The FGD method was applied for data collection using a purposive sampling technique and the thematic method for data analysis. The results from this study indicate that the VAPP Act of 2015 significantly addressed several forms of social marginalization and violence against women such as rape and domestic violence but has not significantly addressed the culture of patriarchy and masculine domination of material wealth in the society which fundamentally enables all kinds of Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). The study recommended that the government of should amend the VAPP Act 2015 to include political issue directing the political parties to present a specific percentage for women to men as candidates from their parties as in practice in several countries of the world including African countries. The study found that such legal provisions would protect women from political marginalization, enhance social-economic empowerment and reduce social-political marginalization of women in Rivers State and Nigeria at large.