Addressing journalists in Lagos, CCN President, Most Rev. Benebo Fubara Fubara-Manuel, expressed serious concern over continued spate of violence against women and girls insisting that governments of nations around the world are not doing enough to address the ugly trend.
The political and social systems, he observed, are not skewed in the favour of women and girls but rather against them adding that the religious systems worsen their plight even when claiming to be agents of liberation.
On how to implement the campaign, he disclosed that members shall engage in mass street rallies and meet with significant political and government figures who can initiate positive changes in this regard.
According to Fubara-Manuel, in this week of enlightenment, “we shall expose all forms of violence against women and girls and re-examine the existing policies of all the bodies to which we belong and the policies of our nation with a view to discerning whether or not these policies perpetuate violence against children in any form. And we commit to ending any such evil policy we discern. We commit to drawing attention to the systems that perpetuate injustice, discerning their chameleonic ways of reasserting their destructive grip and spilling their poisonous venoms in educational, religious, traditional political and domestic systems of the world today.”
Advising parents to start making sufficient provisions for the education of their girl children, the cleric also frowned at anyone, “who in the name of religion sends women and girls out on suicide missions, pulls them out of their homes or schools and keeps them in camps and ghettos, to use some as sex machines, to rape and enslave them in forced marriages or maim others, who resist their evils and ruin their lives for no just cause.”
He noted that the campaign is done in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Education Fund (UNICEF) on the ‘Role of Faith-Based Organisations in Ending Violence against Women and Girls’ as part of the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative. “This phase of the project has Sokoto, Adamawa, The Federal Capital Territory, Lagos, Ebonyi, and Cross River states as focal states,” he said.
Fielding questions from journalists, National Coordinator, EVAWG Project, Dr. Uzoaku Williams, disagreed that indecent dressing can lead to rape. “We should change that mindset. Sex is progressive. Though we are not in support of indecent dressing, but there are other ways to handle issues without being violent,” she stated.
