Abstract
This study examines the impact of human rights advocacy programmes on environmental
awareness among FOWA women in Khanna, Tai and Gokana Local Government Areas of Rivers
State, Nigeria. The main objective was to assess the effectiveness of human rights education in
promoting environmental awareness and empowering women to know their environmental rights.
The study also examined the role of advocacy programmes in influencing women’s behaviour
towards environmental protection and explored the challenges and opportunities faced by these
programmes in promoting environmental awareness. A descriptive research design was adopted,
with a population of 5,248 women from 63 communities in Khanna, 22 communities in Tai and 17
communities in Gokana Local Government Areas. Using Taro Yamane formula, the sample size
was determined to be 433 respondents. Proportional and simple random sampling techniques were
used to select participants from the three local areas. Data were collected through structured
questionnaires and analyzed using descriptive statistics and analysis of variance (ANOVA) tools
for testing the hypotheses. The results revealed that human rights education programs had a
significant impact on improving environmental awareness among FOWA women in all three
localities. The study also found that advocacy programs played a unifying role in empowering
women to be aware of their environmental rights, regardless of their geographic location.
However, the results showed a statistically significant difference in how these programs affected
women’s behavior towards environmental protection: women in Tai showed slightly greater
behavioral change compared to those in Khana and Gokana. Furthermore, challenges faced by
advocacy programs, including traditional beliefs, limited education, financial constraints, and
political interference, were consistent across all three local areas, while opportunities such as
leveraging the FOWA network
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