Hajia Asma’u Joda

 

Hajia Joda is a feminist and a human rights activist based in Yola, Adamawa State in north-eastern Nigeria. She is the founder of the Centre for Women and Adolescent Empowerment, an organization that works with the community to empower women and adolescents to take responsibility for their own rights, and know their rights and responsibilities both as citizens and as women and men. Her work has included stopping child marriages, securing divorce for women in abusive or unhappy marriages, and getting legal redress for girls who have been raped.

Hajia Joda also serves as a Board member of the Isa Wali Empowerment Initiative, a non-governmental and nonprofit organization established with the aim of transforming the lives of the most vulnerable groups (women and children), through the provision of access to improved healthcare, education, economic empowerment programmes channeled at boosting their confidence and self-esteem, and enhancing capacity building in order to motivate them towards a life of economic self-reliance and sufficiency.