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From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
Minister of Women Affairs Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye on Monday disclosed her intentions to go after those who uphold degrading widowhood rights and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), saying they would eventually face prosecution under the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) and Child Rights Acts if they don’t desist from such practices.
She said the prosecution would follow if the education and enlightenment campaign against those responsible for these crimes against Nigerian women and girls failed to yield positive results.
According to her, women’s economic empowerment under her leadership of the ministry is poised to be change,d especially to those in the unreached rural areas.
In a statement issued by Director of Press and Publicity, Olujimi Oyetomi, the Minister made this disclosure when she hosted the ruling political party women led by the All-Progressive Congress (APC) Women Leader, Dr. Mary Alile who were on a courtesy visit to her office.
She lamented the increased rates of female genital mutilation, which she noted had previously only been found in five States but is now present in eight, with perpetrators pretending not to know that the practice is illegal.
“The laws have always been there, but we need to make an example of some persons who persist with the wicked acts against our children and young women.”
The Minister also stated that the maternal mortality rate of 512 deaths per 100,000 live births which is nowhere near the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)’s target of 70 per 100,000 is not acceptable hence her desire to revitalize women’s and children’s hospitals across the federation.
“We have been visiting hospitals to help pay off some treatment bills of some indigent patients, and that is a better way of impacting the poor people.”
Kennedy-Ohanenye further stated that she would use town criers to reach those who don’t watch television or read newspapers and persuade them to voluntarily create women’s cooperative groups in order to fulfil her vision of giving them access to materials, tools, and equipment for economic empowerment.
“Rather than give them fish, I will teach them skills and vocations and supply needed tools and equipment which they can use to boost their small trading. By this, they will complement their husbands and train their children”, adding that the ministry under her watch will help “find local and international markets for the products of the women.”
Kennedy-Ohanenye stated that these visions have long been a part of her, and as a result, she will always be grateful to President Bola Tinubu for putting her in a position that will allow her to express her vision.
She questioned the justification behind why donors, particularly development partners, invest money in eradicating these scourges from Nigerian women and children with little or nothing to show for it and yet have not withheld their funds until things were done properly with positive results.
She stated that her plan was “not to probe the past but to plan what we should all be doing from now, going forward.”
She also spoke on the vision to take skills and vocational development to schools and custodial centres.
“We have been seeking the partnership of the Honourable Minister of Education (HME) to allow inculcating skills and vocational training of students in Nigerian schools where students are taught the production of sanitary pads, toothpick, match stick and boxes, dressmaking and such others; that when we bring in some machines and equipment that will enhance the production of these items and we find markets for them, such rewarding things will be beneficial to the students when they are through with their studies and some of them go into bigger mode of production.
“We are also seeking the cooperation of the Honourable Minister of Interior for us to replace and re-equip the female inmates of some custodial centres in the country with better, newer and more efficient work tools like dress-making machines and other needed machines to revolutionize the reformation of the non-condemned female inmates”, the minister added.
The minister affirmed that she planned for this to be “within the first 100 days in office.”
The APC Women Leader, Alile, as well as Kenny Okojie, expressed the desire of the APC women to support Kennedy-Ohanenye’s vision of seeing to it that students are taught how to produce sanitary pads for their use and even market some of them along with other products they may be taught how to produce under the skills and vocational impartation during her stewardship of the ministry.
Others in the delegation were Ahonsi Dora, Bekky Sulem, Golda Osikhena, Vera Sadoh, Mabel Obetoh, and Philomena Eriyo.
