I think essentially, we’ve got to have a few conversations with ourselves. And there has to be a huge amount of courage that what you’re doing is sha… - Amina J. Mohammed

And there has to be a huge amount of courage that what you’re doing is shaping the future. I mean, concretely, shaping that future for your people with what you know is the right thing.

And this is our leaders, and I’m saying leaders at different levels, because the leaders that we point to and look to as inspirations and heroes, they’re all gone now. And I don’t know who we point to, to replace them. Because today, we’re so critical of the person, we’re so judgmental of the person, and we miss the message that that person carries.

I think we must stop stereotyping some of these issues. The truth of the matter is that there is an evolution of society. At one point, you have one breadwinner, at another point you have more than one breadwinner and a different kind of context and environment. How do we empower everyone to have a role and a place in the home, in the workplace and in society? I think if we do that, we will balance the decisions that we take and we will not be shut out of it.

Regarding gender-based violence, I believe as a human family, the first thing we have to do is draw up our sphere of tolerance. And then to look at what we need to put in place to ensure that tolerance becomes a sustainable part of our community. In Nigeria, for instance, gender-based violence takes many different forms depending on cultural practices. And there’s been a lot of work that the United Nations has done to overcome some of them. But new incidences are being seen, as we face the complexities of some of the conflicts we have in the northeast, for instance, with Boko Haram kidnappings, the rapes and the sex for food. These are unacceptable but again, you have some gains in other parts of the country where we have greatly reduced some of [the harmful] cultural practices.