Women affairs minister advocates death penalty, castration as punishment for rape, others

The Minister for Women Affairs and Social Development, Dame Pauline Tallen says the ministry is intensifying campaign to make death penalty and castration as punishment for Gender Based Violence (GBV) especially rape.

Tallen, who was represented by Funke Oladipo, Director, Women/Gender at media parley on Thursday said the ministry is strongly advocating and calling for the passage of the ‘Sexual Harassment Bill’ which proscribes capital punishment as penalty for rape offenders.

The minister informed that the ministry and the National Council of Women Affairs will next week launch a 16 days of activism in Abuja to say “yes to capital punishment for rape offenders and other GBV.”

Christine Apio, the regional GBV advisor, Call to Action noted that there are still huge gaps that must be addressed in curbing GBV in the country and to meet the The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) 2030 target to eradicate violence against women.

According to her, there is a huge gap in accessing special services by survivors as there are very few health centres that offers specialised services such as medical care, access to justice and security for survivors.

Apio said there is also a gap in designing programmes that economically empower women and promotes their livelihoods as well as programmes that addresses the social norms around GBV and gender inequality that put women and girls in vulnerable conditions.

Fatima Imam, Director Legal Affairs, network of Civil society organizations in Borno added that there is also gap in accessing justice because most of the women and girls do not know their rights. She said seeking justice in Nigeria is technical and slow.

“It takes long to prosecute cses , because of this, the victims may drop the cases, this is in addition to stigma associated with GBV preventing victims to speak up”, she said.

Imam also said the low literacy rate makes it difficult to get evidence from victims for prosecution.

“Most often, after rape for example, what the victims do is to wash off, and in the process they wash away all the evidence making it difficult to support the case.

She further notes that some Nigerian laws are obsolete and needed to be changed or amended.

 

Godsgift Onyedinefu, Abuja