Advancing Equality in Engineering: Legal Frameworks, Regulatory Challenges, and Prospects for Gender Justice within Nigeria’s Environmental Jurisprudence

Advancing Equality in Engineering: Legal Frameworks, Regulatory Challenges, and Prospects for Gender Justice within Nigeria’s Environmental Jurisprudence

¹Mrs. Ruqayyah Olaide Abdulaziz., ²Ekene Edwinkenn Okafor., ²Godfree Matthew

¹University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria

²Faculty of Law, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba, Ondo State

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2025.908000263

Received: 11 August 2025; Accepted: 20 August 2025; Published: 05 September 2025

ABSTRACT

Gender inequality in the engineering profession remains a global challenge, with Nigeria reflecting persistent disparities despite sustained equality initiatives. Women account for less than 15% of registered engineers in Nigeria, a figure that underscores structural, cultural, and institutional barriers restricting entry, retention, and advancement. This paper interrogates these disparities through legal and regulatory lenses, employing feminist legal theory and intersectional analysis to expose their systemic roots. It evaluates international commitments—including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and International Labour Organization conventions on equal remuneration and non-discrimination—alongside Nigerian constitutional guarantees, statutory provisions, and sector-specific regulations. Methodologically, the study combines doctrinal legal analysis with case studies, policy reviews, and regulatory assessments. For instance, it draws on recent regulatory interventions within Nigeria’s power and extractive sectors to show the disjuncture between formal equality norms and the limited enforcement of gender-responsive workplace policies, especially in contexts intersecting with environmental governance. Findings reveal that weak institutional accountability, regulatory inertia, and entrenched cultural norms perpetuate exclusion, while professional resistance sustains occupational segregation. Nonetheless, emerging practices—such as affirmative action in professional licensing, gender-sensitive workplace reforms, and innovative regulatory models—offer promising entry points for reform. The paper concludes by proposing a multi-level strategy that integrates legislative reform, stronger regulatory oversight, institutional capacity building, and sustained advocacy. By explicitly linking gender justice, engineering regulation, and environmental law, the study advances both scholarly discourse and practical frameworks for dismantling systemic barriers and fostering inclusivity in Nigeria’s engineering profession.

Key words: Affirmative Action, Engineering Profession, Environmental Jurisprudence, Feminist Legal Theory, Gender Equality and Regulatory Reform.

INTRODUCTION

The persistent underrepresentation of women in the engineering profession remains one of the most entrenched forms of gender inequality in the global labour market. Although international, regional, and national legal instruments have made notable advances toward equality of opportunity, the lived realities of women in engineering reflect a stubborn gap between legislative intent and actual outcomes (Charlesworth, 2024). Across jurisdictions, engineering continues to be culturally and institutionally constructed as a male-dominated domain, with women facing systemic barriers to entry, retention, and advancement (Powell et al., 2018). This paper situates its analysis within the Nigerian context, examining how legal frameworks and regulatory structures intersect with environmental jurisprudence to shape gender dynamics in engineering.

Historically, the gendered division of labour has placed engineering in a sphere associated with technical masculinity, marginalising women both through exclusionary norms and structural limitations (Faulkner, 2009). Statistical trends illustrate the magnitude of this disparity: in many countries, women comprise less than 20% of registered engineers (UNESCO, 2021). Even where educational attainment has narrowed—such as in the United Kingdom, where women represent over 30% of engineering graduates—the attrition rate remains disproportionately high, with only 14.5% of practising engineers being women (EngineeringUK, 2022). Similar trends are observed across sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria, where cultural stereotypes, workplace discrimination, and regulatory inertia hinder women’s full participation (Akinwale & Olabisi, 2019).

The global legal landscape contains multiple instruments mandating equality in employment. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, 1979) obliges states to remove barriers to women’s participation in all sectors, including science and engineering. The International Labour Organization’s Conventions No. 100 on Equal Remuneration (1951) and No. 111 on Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) (1958) reinforce these obligations. Regionally, the European Union’s Directive 2006/54/EC mandates equal treatment in employment, while the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and its Maputo Protocol impose legally binding equality duties on state parties (African Union, 2003). Nationally, countries such as Canada and Sweden have embedded proactive equality measures into labour codes, moving beyond formal equality to address substantive disparities (Fredman, 2011).

However, in Nigeria, while constitutional provisions under sections 15 and 42 guarantee equality and prohibit discrimination, enforcement remains inconsistent (Grace, 2025). Regulatory bodies in the engineering sector, such as the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), have yet to operationalise gender-sensitive policies that address structural inequalities. Most legal provisions remain oriented toward formal equality, failing to address the deeper socio-cultural, institutional, and environmental factors that perpetuate gender gaps. Moreover, enforcement mechanisms are often weak, under-resourced, or procedurally inaccessible to those most affected (Oji, 2020).

Despite Nigeria’s commitments under international and regional equality frameworks, women remain significantly underrepresented in engineering, particularly in roles intersecting with environmental governance and infrastructure development. The lack of targeted regulatory measures, coupled with socio-cultural resistance and insufficient institutional oversight (Grace, 2024), has contributed to a cycle of exclusion. These disparities not only undermine gender justice but also limit the engineering profession’s capacity to address complex environmental challenges through diverse perspectives.

This paper seeks to achieve three interrelated objectives. First, it critically analyses the legal frameworks governing gender equality in Nigeria’s engineering sector, with particular attention to their intersection with environmental jurisprudence. Second, it examines the regulatory challenges—both institutional and cultural—that hinder effective implementation of equality provisions. Third, it identifies and evaluates potential pathways toward equity, drawing on comparative legal insights, feminist legal theory, and best practices from jurisdictions that have successfully narrowed gender gaps in engineering.

By linking Nigeria’s engineering regulatory framework with its environmental governance obligations, this study contributes to both the scholarship on gender and law and the practical discourse on engineering reform. Ultimately, it argues for a shift toward substantive equality measures—integrating legislative reform, regulatory innovation, and socio-cultural change—to advance gender justice within the Nigerian engineering profession.

Conceptual and Theoretical Framework

This study is grounded in feminist legal theory, which challenges the assumption that law operates neutrally and instead exposes how legal structures can embed and perpetuate systemic disadvantage for women (MacKinnon, 2013). In Nigeria, this critique is particularly salient. Although Section 42 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended) prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, enforcement in technical fields such as engineering has been inconsistent. In Uzoukwu v Ezeonu II (1991) 6 NWLR (Pt 200) 708, the Court clarified the scope of discrimination, and in Alero v Nigeria Police Force (Unreported, NICN/ABJ/128/2018, 16 July 2020), the National Industrial Court affirmed that workplace gender discrimination contravenes constitutional guarantees. However, such rulings have not translated into widespread structural reform. Policy measures such as the National Gender Policy 2006 and the Labour Act Cap L1 LFN 2004 lack binding enforcement provisions capable of dismantling entrenched male dominance in engineering, particularly in environmental regulation.

The framework also draws on intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989), recognising that gender inequality is often compounded by overlapping identities such as ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, and disability. Women from rural or marginalised communities face heightened barriers to education, licensure, and leadership in engineering projects. The purposive interpretive approach in Attorney General of the Federation v Abubakar (2007) 10 NWLR (Pt 1041) 1 underscores the need for legal interpretation that actively protects vulnerable groups, yet this principle is underutilised in environmental and engineering governance.

A third analytical tool, critical professionalism (Cech, 2014), interrogates how professional norms and regulatory practices privilege dominant groups. In Nigeria, bodies such as the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) maintain procedural and cultural standards that, while facially neutral, systematically disadvantage women’s progression to decision-making roles.

Environmental statutes provide further insight into these dynamics. The Environmental Impact Assessment Act Cap E12 LFN 2004 mandates stakeholder consultation in environmentally significant projects, yet gender perspectives are seldom incorporated, limiting women’s influence over engineering decisions. Likewise, the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (Establishment) Act 2007 (NESREA Act) confers regulatory authority over environmental protection but lacks gender-responsive compliance frameworks, resulting in male-dominated access to high-value environmental engineering contracts and leadership roles. These omissions indirectly reinforce occupational segregation.

By integrating feminist legal theory, intersectionality, and critical professionalism, this study situates gender inequality within the legal, environmental, and institutional structures that govern engineering in Nigeria. This multidimensional approach enables a nuanced analysis of how laws, policies, and professional norms interact to maintain gender imbalances, while also providing a foundation for targeted, enforceable reforms that align environmental jurisprudence with gender justice.

METHODOLOGY

The methodological approach of this study is designed to translate the insights from feminist legal theory, intersectionality, and critical professionalism into an applied analytical process. Given the dual legal and socio-professional focus of the research, a doctrinal-empirical hybrid design is adopted, integrating legal analysis with qualitative and documentary evidence.

First, doctrinal legal analysis will be employed to examine constitutional provisions, statutory instruments, policy frameworks, and judicial precedents relevant to gender equality in Nigeria’s engineering and environmental regulation sectors. This includes a critical reading of Section 42 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), the Labour Act Cap L1 LFN 2004, the National Gender Policy 2006, the Environmental Impact Assessment Act Cap E12 LFN 2004, and the NESREA Act 2007. Court decisions such as Uzoukwu v Ezeonu II (1991) 6 NWLR (Pt 200) 708, Alero v Nigeria Police Force (Unreported, NICN/ABJ/128/2018), and Attorney General of the Federation v Abubakar (2007) 10 NWLR (Pt 1041) 1 will be interrogated through the feminist legal theory lens, assessing how judicial reasoning reflects or neglects gender-responsive interpretations.

Second, intersectional analysis will be operationalised through the review of demographic and labour force data from the National Bureau of Statistics, engineering professional registers, and project participation records in environmental engineering initiatives. Disaggregating data by gender, ethnicity, region, and socio-economic status will enable identification of patterns of compounded disadvantage, especially for women in rural or minority communities.

Third, critical professionalism will be applied by analysing institutional policies, codes of conduct, and procedural requirements from the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) and environmental project oversight agencies. This will involve content analysis of organisational guidelines to identify embedded norms and standards that implicitly favour dominant groups.

To complement textual and policy analysis, semi-structured interviews will be conducted with female engineers, environmental regulators, and representatives from professional bodies to capture lived experiences and perceptions of institutional bias. The data from these interviews will be thematically coded, enabling comparison between formal legal guarantees and on-the-ground realities.

By triangulating doctrinal, empirical, and thematic evidence, this methodology ensures that the conceptual frameworks are not only theoretically engaged but are also tested against legal texts, institutional practices, and lived experiences. This approach strengthens the study’s ability to propose contextually grounded and enforceable reforms for advancing gender justice in Nigeria’s environmental engineering jurisprudence.

Research Scope and Limitations

This study focuses on the intersection of gender equality, engineering regulation, and environmental jurisprudence in Nigeria, with specific attention to how legal and institutional frameworks influence women’s access, retention, and advancement in the engineering profession. The analysis centres on constitutional provisions, statutory instruments, regulatory policies, and judicial decisions that directly or indirectly shape gender dynamics in technical fields. While the scope is national, emphasis is placed on environmental engineering because it provides a distinctive lens through which to examine both sector-specific regulations—such as the Environmental Impact Assessment Act Cap E12 LFN 2004 and the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (Establishment) Act 2007—and broader professional governance by bodies such as the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN).

The study engages with three primary analytical frameworks: feminist legal theory, intersectionality, and critical professionalism. These are applied in a cross-disciplinary manner, integrating doctrinal legal analysis with empirical data and professional practice assessments. While the research incorporates key international and regional human rights instruments for comparative context, the principal focus remains on Nigerian law, policy, and institutional culture.

Several limitations are acknowledged. First, the reliance on official records, statutory texts, and reported judicial decisions may under-represent informal practices or unreported cases that also shape women’s experiences in the sector. Second, access to comprehensive, disaggregated labour market and project participation data is constrained, particularly for engineering sub-disciplines within environmental regulation. This may limit the depth of quantitative analysis. Third, the qualitative component, while enriched by semi-structured interviews, is bounded by the willingness and availability of respondents, which may skew perspectives toward those more engaged in advocacy or policy reform.

Moreover, given the dynamic nature of law and policy, findings reflect the state of Nigerian legal and regulatory frameworks as at the time of research, and subsequent legislative or judicial developments may alter certain conclusions. Despite these limitations, the study offers a robust, multi-layered analysis that bridges legal doctrine, institutional practice, and lived experience, laying a solid foundation for evidence-based reforms in pursuit of gender justice in Nigeria’s environmental engineering sector.

Analysis

Building on the methodological foundations and defined scope of this study, the analysis begins with an examination of Nigeria’s constitutional and statutory framework on gender equality as it relates to engineering regulation and environmental governance. The starting point is Section 42 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), which prohibits discrimination based on sex, ethnicity, or other status. While this provision establishes a formal guarantee of equality, its practical application within engineering and environmental sectors reveals notable gaps. Judicial decisions, such as Uzoukwu v Ezeonu II (1991) 6 NWLR (Pt 200) 708, have provided interpretative clarity on the meaning of “discrimination,” while cases like Alero v Nigeria Police Force (Unreported, NICN/ABJ/128/2018, 16 July 2020) illustrate judicial recognition of workplace gender bias. However, enforcement remains inconsistent, particularly in specialised professional fields such as environmental engineering.

Statutory frameworks further demonstrate this dissonance between formal equality and substantive outcomes. The Labour Act Cap L1 LFN 2004 and National Gender Policy 2006 articulate broad commitments to non-discrimination and workplace inclusivity, yet neither contains binding mechanisms tailored to the structural barriers faced by women in technical professions. In practice, this regulatory gap allows male-dominated recruitment patterns, promotion structures, and contracting arrangements to persist, especially in sectors requiring specialised engineering qualifications.

Environmental legislation adds another dimension to this inequality. The Environmental Impact Assessment Act Cap E12 LFN 2004 mandates stakeholder consultation in projects with significant environmental implications but provides no explicit requirement to integrate gender considerations into project design, decision-making, or compliance monitoring. Similarly, the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (Establishment) Act 2007 (NESREA Act) establishes NESREA’s regulatory authority but does not embed gender-responsive oversight in its enforcement protocols. This omission has the indirect effect of privileging established male-led engineering firms and excluding female professionals from lucrative and influential project roles.

Against this legal and regulatory backdrop, institutional practices within professional bodies such as the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) play a critical role in shaping access and progression. Codes of ethics, accreditation processes, and professional advancement criteria—while ostensibly neutral—often reflect entrenched norms that perpetuate gender imbalances. The interplay between these legal structures and professional cultures forms the basis for the subsequent sections of this analysis.

Applying feminist legal theory, the constitutional and labour frameworks reveal a gap between formal rights and substantive redress. Section 42 of the Constitution guarantees non-discrimination, and labour law contains provisions protecting certain classes of workers, yet these textual protections have not produced structural parity within technical professions. The jurisprudential record demonstrates narrow or uneven enforcement: appellate reasoning in Uzoukwu v Ezeonu II illustrates limits in discrimination inquiries, and higher-court pronouncements in politically charged constitutional litigation confirm a cautious, sometimes formalistic, judicial posture toward purposive equality interpretation.

Through an intersectional lens, environmental statutes and policy instruments reveal how regulatory design can compound disadvantage. The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Act mandates stakeholder engagement but provides no explicit gender-mainstreaming requirement; as a result, EIA procedures often fail to capture the specific concerns and participation constraints of women—especially those from rural, low-income, or marginalised communities—thereby excluding them from project decision-making and the attendant professional opportunities. Likewise, the NESREA Act establishes broad enforcement powers but lacks gender-responsive compliance protocols, which permits established (predominantly male) firms to capture project roles and leadership. These statutory omissions interact with the National Gender Policy’s ambitions, exposing a disjunction between policy goals and regulatory practice.

Using critical professionalism, a close reading of COREN’s regulatory instruments and membership procedures shows how ostensibly neutral credentialing, examination, and registration rules can reproduce exclusion. COREN’s code, registration guidelines, and amended statutory mandate set technical and procedural thresholds that—absent affirmative measures or outreach—tend to privilege candidates with uninterrupted training, institutional networks, and mobility advantages (conditions less accessible to many women). This institutional analysis explains how professional culture and regulatory procedure jointly sustain gender imbalances in environmental engineering governance.

Together, these doctrinal and institutional readings demonstrate that remedial law alone is insufficient: meaningful reform requires gender-responsive regulatory design, purposive judicial interpretation, and professional-level interventions that dismantle procedural barriers to women’s full participation.

FINDINGS

1. Legal Frameworks: Reactive Rather Than Proactive

In Nigeria, the prevailing framework of environmental and engineering legislation is largely oriented towards post-event remediation, intervening only after problems have emerged rather than establishing preventive mechanisms to advance gender equity. There are no explicit statutory provisions requiring gender audits, regular workplace gender assessments, or the implementation of proactive inclusion strategies within either environmental governance or professional engineering regulation. This legislative gap reflects a fundamentally reactive posture, whereby gender disparities are approached as isolated issues to be remedied rather than as systemic imbalances requiring structural prevention. The absence of forward-looking measures restricts the ability of regulatory institutions to foresee, mitigate, or eliminate gender inequities before they become entrenched. As a result, opportunities to embed gender-responsive practices into the foundational stages of policy design, project planning, and professional oversight are missed. Such omissions not only limit the potential for sustained and transformative change but also perpetuate professional cultures and institutional arrangements that marginalise women. Integrating preventive gender equity measures into the core of environmental and engineering regulation is therefore essential to cultivating inclusive, equitable, and resilient sectors capable of reflecting the diversity and talent within Nigeria’s workforce.

2. Regulatory Deficiencies: Gender Equity as an Afterthought

In Nigeria, regulatory bodies tasked with overseeing engineering standards and environmental compliance often lack the necessary expertise to integrate gender perspectives into their operations. This gap in institutional capacity means that gender equality considerations are rarely embedded in the fundamental regulatory processes that shape the profession, such as professional licensure, accreditation of training programmes, and disciplinary procedures. The absence of gender-sensitive evaluation within these mechanisms creates a persistent blind spot in governance, where the potential differential impacts of decisions, policies, and enforcement actions on men and women are neither anticipated nor addressed. By operating under a supposedly “gender-neutral” framework—one that assumes identical outcomes for all—these bodies inadvertently sustain existing structural disparities. Equality objectives remain peripheral rather than central to regulatory practice, treated as supplementary issues rather than essential governance priorities. This approach limits the ability of regulatory authorities to actively dismantle barriers to participation and progression for women in engineering and environmental fields. It also undermines broader national and sectoral goals for diversity, innovation, and sustainable development. Embedding gender equity as a core principle in regulatory functions is therefore critical, not only to ensure fairness but also to enhance the inclusivity, responsiveness, and overall effectiveness of professional standards and environmental governance in Nigeria.

3. Cultural Entrenchment: Masculine Norms Undermine Inclusivity

Workplace cultures within the engineering and environmental sectors remain deeply shaped by entrenched masculine norms that valorise competitiveness, technical assertiveness, and physical dominance. These traits are often positioned as markers of professional competence, subtly reinforcing exclusionary standards that disadvantage women. As a result, female professionals frequently encounter environments where their contributions are undervalued, their career progression impeded, and their sense of belonging diminished. This cultural framing not only perpetuates gendered power imbalances but also discourages sustained participation by women in these fields. Over time, the cumulative effect of marginalization, implicit bias, and lack of inclusive practices contributes to persistently low retention rates among women, undermining both diversity objectives and the capacity of these sectors to fully harness the breadth of available talent.

As evidenced by Canadian studies, women often leave engineering due to organizational culture (30 %), unfavourable working conditions like excessive travel or poor advancement prospects (nearly 50 %), and inflexible work-life balance norms (25 %) (Engineers, 2022) 

4. Intersectional Marginalization: Compounded Disadvantages

In Nigeria, policies that address gender as a single, uniform category often fail to recognise the distinct challenges faced by minority women, including those from Indigenous communities and other socially or ethnically marginalised groups. Such women frequently contend with overlapping forms of disadvantage—rooted in ethnicity, culture, and regional disparities—that compound gender-based barriers in education, employment, and professional advancement. By neglecting these intersecting realities, current frameworks risk implementing solutions that benefit only a limited segment of women, leaving the most vulnerable excluded. A more nuanced, intersectional approach is therefore essential to ensure that gender equity initiatives address the full spectrum of women’s experiences across Nigeria’s diverse social landscape. For example, Canada’s Employment Equity framework underscores this by showing that, although women generally experienced improved promotion rates over time, women within visible-minority groups did not experience the same relative gains (PSC-Government, 2019). This illustrates how generalized gender policies can fail when intersectional dimensions are not explicitly addressed.

5. Effective Interventions: Lessons from Canadian Jurisdictions

Comparative evidence from Canada offers illuminating examples of successful affirmative measures. The Employment Equity Act mandates proactive policies to dismantle barriers for women and other designated groups in federal employment, requiring employers to implement special measures for hiring, retention, training, and promotion (Wikipedia, 2025). The impact is quantifiable: between 1991–2005 and 2005–2018, women’s relative promotion rates shifted from –5.0 % to +1.2 % when compared to men (PSC-Government, 2019).

Moreover, targeted regulatory programs—such as mentorship initiatives, equity guidelines, and workplace bias training offered through organizations like Engineers Canada, SCWIST, and APEGA—have fostered improved retention and inclusion. These include the ‘30 by 30’ initiative (50-30 Challenge) to increase newly licensed women engineers to 30 % by 2030, as well as workshops addressing unconscious bias and inclusion toolkits (House of Commons, 2015; Engineers, 2022). These efforts underscore the potential of embedded affirmative policies to enhance female representation and leadership in engineering.

Regulatory and Institutional Challenges

1. Technical Focus at the Expense of Equality

In Nigeria’s engineering and environmental sectors, regulatory bodies such as the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) and the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) remain heavily invested in safeguarding technical standards and procedural compliance. While this emphasis ensures professional competence and environmental safety, it also sidelines broader ethical and social concerns, particularly gender equality. Equality considerations are rarely embedded within licensing requirements, accreditation frameworks, or disciplinary structures. Instead, they are treated as ancillary matters, detached from the central regulatory mission. This narrow, skills-centred orientation reflects a longstanding tradition in technical professions, but its persistence sustains structural barriers to inclusion and contributes to a professional culture that is predominantly male-oriented.

2. Gender-Blind Processes and Data Shortfalls

A critical weakness of Nigeria’s regulatory landscape lies in the absence of systematic gender audits within licensing and accreditation processes. Without such evaluations, potential barriers—such as unequal access to training opportunities, mentorship, or examination resources—remain undetected and unaddressed. This blind spot perpetuates a framework that appears neutral but, in practice, reinforces gendered disparities. Equally problematic is the lack of legal or institutional obligations to collect, analyse, and publish gender-disaggregated data across engineering and environmental professions. The omission undermines transparency and deprives policymakers of the evidence needed to design effective equity interventions. Without robust statistical insights, disparities in representation, career progression, or disciplinary outcomes remain hidden from scrutiny. This lack of accountability constrains reform and allows existing inequities to persist largely unchecked.

3. Policy Gaps in Workplace Protection

Nigeria faces substantial institutional gaps in tackling workplace harassment and gender inequities. Although the country has ratified ILO Convention No. 190, which sets international standards for preventing violence and harassment at work, enforcement remains weak. Many organisations lack clear, accessible, and enforceable anti-harassment policies, while existing measures are inconsistently applied. Cultural stigma discourages victims from reporting incidents, and limited awareness or training among regulatory and enforcement bodies further undermines effective protection. As a result, perpetrators often face minimal accountability, and systemic barriers to justice persist. This combination of weak policy implementation, social barriers, and institutional inertia continues to compromise workplace safety, particularly for women, and hinders broader efforts toward achieving gender equity in Nigeria’s professional sectors. (The Guardian-Lagos, 30 May 2024)

Research shows over 94% of employees recognise sexual harassment as a serious workplace concern, yet few have access to trusted reporting systems (Premium Times 2024).

4. Insufficient Support for Work–Life Balance

Institutional policies addressing workplace harassment, parental leave, and flexible work arrangements in Nigeria are frequently unclear, inconsistently applied, or poorly enforced. As a result, they fail to provide adequate protection or support for employees, particularly women balancing professional responsibilities with caregiving roles. Working mothers, in particular, face significant challenges in reconciling career progression with family obligations, often without reliable access to childcare facilities or adaptable scheduling options. The absence of robust, enforceable measures perpetuates workplace environments that undervalue caregiving needs and disproportionately disadvantage women. This gap in institutional practice not only hinders gender equity but also contributes to higher attrition rates among skilled female professionals in engineering and environmental sectors.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Strengthening Legal and Institutional Mandates for Gender Equality

For Nigeria’s engineering and environmental sectors to achieve genuine gender justice, regulatory mandates must explicitly recognise gender equality as a core objective in licensing, accreditation, and professional governance. This would require amending enabling statutes—such as the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) Act—to embed equality obligations into the heart of regulatory practice. Equality should not be treated as an ancillary consideration but as a central pillar of professional competence and sectoral governance.

Opportunities for Reform include several strategic approaches:

• Affirmative Action – Legally mandated quotas can provide a rapid corrective in areas where voluntary initiatives have failed to achieve meaningful representation of women in engineering and environmental professions.
• Gender-Sensitive Regulations – The introduction of gender impact assessments into regulatory decision-making would allow authorities to anticipate and mitigate discriminatory effects before policies or standards are adopted.
• Strategic Litigation – Courts can be used to expand interpretations of constitutional and statutory provisions on equality and non-discrimination, creating binding precedents that influence regulatory behaviour.
• Collaborative Governance – Co-regulatory frameworks involving civil society organisations, academic institutions, and industry stakeholders can ensure that equality objectives are grounded in practical realities.

Policy Recommendations arising from these opportunities include:

1. Mandating gender audits and public reporting requirements for engineering firms.
2. Introducing licensing prerequisites that require diversity, equity, and inclusion training.
3. Developing a national gender strategy specifically targeting STEM professions.
4. Encouraging international regulatory cooperation to harmonise and elevate best practices across jurisdictions.

Implementing Gender Bias Audits

Mandatory gender bias audits for all licensing and accreditation processes would allow regulators to identify and address structural disadvantages faced by women and other underrepresented groups. These audits should evaluate application procedures, assessment criteria, and examination environments to ensure they do not inadvertently perpetuate inequality. Corrective action plans must accompany audit findings to promote systemic change rather than isolated adjustments.

Institutionalising Anti-Harassment and Inclusion Policies

Clear, enforceable policies on harassment, discrimination, and inclusion are essential for creating safe professional environments. Nigerian regulators should harmonise these policies with international standards, particularly ILO Convention No. 190 on the elimination of violence and harassment in the world of work. Such frameworks should include mandatory anti-harassment training, accessible reporting mechanisms, and enforceable sanctions for breaches. Integrating these requirements into licensing and accreditation standards would make workplace safety and inclusion a regulatory obligation rather than a discretionary practice (The Guardian -Lagos, 30 May 2024).

Mandatory Gender-Disaggregated Reporting

The absence of gender-disaggregated data in Nigeria’s engineering and environmental sectors is a significant barrier to accountability and reform. Legal obligations to collect, analyse, and publish such data on membership, promotions, disciplinary actions, and attrition would provide a factual foundation for policy interventions. Publicly available statistics would enable regulators, researchers, and advocacy groups to track progress, identify gaps, and hold institutions accountable for advancing equity (Premium Times -Abuja, 2 August 2024).

Supporting Work–Life Integration

Work–life balance policies are vital for retaining women in STEM-related professions. Professional bodies should require employers to adopt family-friendly measures such as paid parental leave, workplace childcare facilities, and flexible working arrangements. Access to workplace crèches, for instance, has been shown to empower Nigerian women to sustain their careers while meeting caregiving obligations. Flexible work schemes not only benefit women but also contribute to overall productivity and job satisfaction across the workforce.

Building Gender-Responsive Capacity

Sustainable reform depends on the capacity of regulators and institutional leaders to understand and address the gendered implications of their policies and practices. Structured training programmes on gender-responsive regulation—drawing from both Nigerian realities and international best practice—should be mandatory for senior officials. Collaboration with universities, gender advocacy organisations, and international agencies can enrich these programmes and ensure their ongoing relevance.

Aligning with National and International Development Agendas

Efforts to reform Nigeria’s regulatory landscape must align with broader policy commitments, including the National Gender Policy (2021–2026) and international frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly Goals 5 (Gender Equality) and 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth).^7 By situating gender equity within these global and national priorities, reforms can attract political will, development funding, and technical assistance. Moreover, integrating gender justice into environmental and engineering governance reinforces Nigeria’s obligations under multilateral agreements addressing sustainable development, climate resilience, and inclusive economic growth.

CONCLUSION

Nigeria’s engineering and environmental regulatory landscape remains constrained by an entrenched emphasis on technical standards, while neglecting the social and ethical dimensions—particularly gender equity—that are essential to building inclusive professional sectors. Licensing, accreditation, and compliance procedures are largely gender-blind, and the absence of systematic gender-disaggregated data collection prevents regulators from diagnosing and addressing disparities effectively. This governance framework, though often presented as neutral, fails to anticipate, identify, or correct structural inequalities. In practice, it reinforces exclusionary norms that limit women’s participation, curtail the diversity of professional talent, and undermine the potential for innovation and sustainable sectoral growth.

Current legal frameworks for gender equality in engineering and environmental governance exist but remain insufficient in scope, enforcement, and contextual sensitivity. Their reactive orientation means they often address gender inequities only after they manifest, rather than embedding preventive measures into regulatory processes. This leaves deep-rooted cultural and institutional barriers unchallenged, perpetuating environments where women face systemic disadvantages in recruitment, retention, and career progression.

Transforming this reality requires a deliberate, multi-layered strategy. Regulatory bodies must move beyond compliance-based approaches to actively integrate gender considerations into every dimension of professional oversight, from policy formulation and licensing criteria to disciplinary proceedings and institutional accreditation. Such integration should be supported by enforceable mandates for gender audits, bias assessments, and transparent public reporting.

However, legal and procedural reform alone is insufficient. Achieving substantive equality also demands cultural transformation within the engineering and environmental professions—dismantling entrenched workplace norms that valorise masculine models of competence while marginalising alternative contributions. This cultural shift should be reinforced through capacity-building programmes, industry partnerships, and alignment with national and global equality frameworks.

In sum, advancing gender justice in Nigeria’s engineering and environmental sectors depends on a confluence of legal innovation, institutional reform, and cultural change (Idris, Grace Et.el, 2023). Only by embedding equality as a core regulatory objective can the country cultivate a diverse, resilient, and socially responsive professional workforce capable of meeting both national development goals and global sustainability imperatives.

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