Violence Against Women
The Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC) has joined other groups worldwide to call on world leaders including President Goodluck Jonathan, to act to stop violence against women that has continued unabated, so as “to save Nigerian women from needless deaths.”
While condemning the gang rape which led to the death of the victim who was raped in a bus in New Delhi on the 16th of December 2012, WARDC said womenfolk has continued to face gender related violence with many resulting to death, noting that these incidences could be averted if governments take the lives and security of women more seriously.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday, the Executive Director of WARDC, Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi, said ‘the gang rape and subsequent death of the Indian woman once again brings to limelight the continued vulnerability of women to gender based violence and the need for government all over the world to take adequate steps through legislation and other means to ensure zero tolerance to rape and other forms of violence against women.”
Lamenting over the deplorable nature of gender-based violence in Nigeria, Akiyode-Afolabi stressed further that “more than ever before in Nigeria, the media, both news and social, had this year published several reports of rapes and gang rapes, yet the issues are not prioritised as a subject of national discourse requiring special attention. According to her, “the attitude of the government is an indication of blatant disregard for the rights of women and the failure of Nigerian Government at both national and state level.
The case of Cynthia the postgraduate who was gang raped and killed by her Facebook friends and the widely reported Aba 4 gang rape case affirm the prevalence of rape and other sexual violence cases in Nigeria; unfortunately majority of the perpetrators still walk free on the street,” she said.