The African Women on Board (AWB) are seeking men as allies in its #Youtoo movement to ensure all hands are on deck in dealing with violence against women and advancing the cause of African Women.
The call for support comes on the heels of the recent footage showing one of Nigeria’s youngest senators, Elisha Abbo, violently beating a young woman at a sex toyshop in Abuja. The body, condemning the unruly act, said it was important to set an example of bringing an individual in power to justice, particularly in a charge of violence against women.
The Board noted that the Nigerian society appears to work in tandem with a system that encourages the violence against as many not only tends to invalidate the confessions of victims but also wear the victims of abuse the burden of blame.
AWB vowed to work alongside a whole force of courageous minds to ensure Senator Abbo faces the justice deserving for his actions, saying it will call for jail time, fines and his impeachment from office Stating that men are needed in the pursuit of women cause, AWB in a statement made available to BusinessDay demanded that women be included in the heavily-male saturated halls of power and a higher presence and power behind women’s causes for equity and justice.
“In this movement that AWB is wielding to advance the causes of African women, our focus is not just on this specific violent incident with Senator Abbo. We are also agonizingly disheartened by the recent Busola Dakolo interview, wherein she shares in detail an account of being raped by Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo; but the issue is far greater than these moments. Adeptly, we know that these men are just today’s face of a twisted system, a synthetic fabric laced with blind eyes in the countless cases of violence against women.”
Particularly, the movement vowed to go after the individuals who backlashed Dakolo’s testimony male and female and those who excuse the violent manifestations of the anger of men.
In this type of social environment, AWB believes women have to constantly police themselves to exist in a culture that views them as guilty and deserving of violence.
According to the board, the shift in western culture which has sped up by movements like #metoo and TIMES UP was yet to take root on the African continent.
“But we still need something that works. We must ask ourselves, what kind of society gives men who witness violence being done against women reason to decide it’s not their business. Why are we siding with oppressors?” AWB said.
“There is no neutral position, when the attacker is on one side victimizing another. We are talking about the survival of our people. This is a societal, cultural and business-based issue. If you continue to hurt half of your population, your industry, your workforces, then you bind your own hands from achieving growth.”
The vision of a prosperous and outward looking Africa that was forged at the turn of the millennium and the start of the internet age is now in danger of being eroded again, by the archaic and barbaric perpetuation of unchecked male power within our society, it said, noting that instead of debating the veracity of survivors’ testimonies, as often done with the #metoo movement, the focus on individuals, meaning #Youtoo can be an agent, an activist in the zeitgeist for equality for all.
