Group raises alarm over increasing mob-violence against women
Network on Police Reform in Nigeria (NOPRIN), a civil society group, has raised alarm on the increasing mob violence targeted at women and urged security agencies to check the trend.
National Coordinator of the group, Mr Ikechukwu Nwanguma, raised the alarm in a statement in Lagos on Thursday.
According to Nwanguma, NOPRIN condemns without reservation, the increasing spate of mob violence against women accused of crime and we urge the public to hand over such woman to the police for prosecution.
“NOPRIN is seriously concerned about citizens’ increasing resort to mob violence targeting at women in particular. In recent times, we’ve watched with outrage viral videos of women stripped.
“Such women are publicly paraded and subjected to dehumanizing and brutal treatment while being video recorded. One of such videos of this barbaric action was about a young woman in Edo accused of stealing a phone.
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“She was stripped, hands tied behind, paraded and beaten by a gang of men, with some women in the crowd watching, cheering and joining in condemning the young woman.
“A more recent one in Delta was about a woman similarly tied hands and legs, publicly paraded and viciously attacked, slapped, kicked, punched and hit with wooden objects.
“This was on the alleged order of a Senior Special Assistant to Delta State Governor, who alleged that the woman ‘disrespected’ him. Again, women were in the crowd cheering as their fellow woman was being dehumanized,” he noted.
Nwanguma said that the action amounted to sexual violence and torture, and an act of discrimination based on gender.
“This act of barbarism must be punished and deterred,” he said.
He commended the Inspector- General of Police for his prompt response in ordering the arrest and persecution of perpetrators in at least two of the cases.
The group’s coordinator said that prosecution would send a clear message to the perpetrators and others that the act was not just barbaric, but a crime for people to take laws into their hands.
NAN
