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!
