Saturday, March 8, 2014

DO NOT celebrate the Women if...

DO NOT celebrate the Women if...
By Obo Effanga

As the world celebrates this year’s International Women’s Day and some churches celebrate Mother's Day, the following persons should shut up and not pretend to celebrate womanhood:

The rapist and those who blame the rape victim as causing her predicament because of what she wore. Pray, how do infants (two years and below) dress to attract a rapist?

The father (and any other man) who rapes his daughter and other family members (even if no one else is aware of your crime/sin).

The woman (and man) of the house who uses physical and psychological torture and violence on their housemaids, even if on Sunday, they will go ‘waving holy hands’ and ululate in church.

The charlatan who wears the garb of religion, yet violates hapless women in the name of ‘spiritual cleansing’.

The woman, who insists that another woman (possibly her daughter or sister-in-law) goes through the ‘widowhood’ rites including physical and mental torture to prove that she truly mourns the death of her spouse or was not responsible for the death.

The in-laws who deprive a widow from keeping the property left behind by her late husband and justify it on ‘tradition’.

The family members and leaders of religious faiths who pretend that violence against women do not exist among their highly ‘spirit-filled’ members and when such is reported they treat it with levity and encourage the woman to go back and live with it, thus exposing her to more violence and ultimately death.

The legislators who keep playing politics and fail to pass the Violence Against Persons Bill, yet are quick to pass other less urgent and non-life-threatening bills.

The businesses and business leaders who put  young female marketing staff in harms’ way through unrealistic ‘targets’ and don’t give a damn about how they achieve such targets.

The law enforcement officer who  dismisses reported cases of violence against a woman as ‘family matter’ and interrogates the woman as to what she did to her husband to warrant the attack, even suggesting that she may have been rude or failed to fix him a meal.

The husband who holds the wife captive through violence or threat thereof; deprivation; physical, mental and psychological torture.

The citizen who looks the other way when issues of violence against women are mentioned because they think it is “other people’s problem” or asks, “is that the problem of Nigeria?” Oh, actually, it is a problem of Nigeria!


And for the rest of you out there with no skeletons in your cupboard, Happy Women’s Day!

1 comment:

Admin said...

Obo, you're the man. The good Lord will not but bless you even if this is the only good thing you have managed to get out to the public because so much pretense goes into the celebration of mothers day that it hurts a guy like me so much to even watch women celebrate sometimes. The area that gets me the most is that most women who pretend to be good mothers mete out unimaginable evil against other people's children esp house helps. A good number are even frustrated enough to do same to their own children. Everyone knows that most men default in a great many areas but nowdays they hardly are anywhere compared with what our so-called mother figures are up to. God help us His children!