A non-governmental organisation, DOHS Care Foundation (DOHS), has called on the Lagos State House of Assembly to make a law against femicide, to ensure justice for women and girls who die as a result of gender-based violence.
The NGO made the call on the sidelines of a walk to the state Assembly on Friday in Lagos.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the walk, with the theme, ‘#CALLITFEMICIDE’, was organised by DOHS to educate the public and also to distinguish between homicide and femicide.
The group chanted slogans like ‘stop femicide’, ‘call it femicide’ and ‘legislate femicide’.
Mrs Olalade Ajayi, Founder, DOHS, said femicide is the intentional killing of women and girls by men while homicide is the murder of people in general.
According to Ajayi, the perpetrators of femicide are men, who are the victims’ intimate partners, including husbands, ex-husbands, boyfriends, and relations, such as fathers, brothers and uncles.
She further said there were patterns that distinguish homicide from femicide, and showed these women and girls were victims.
The patterns include domestic and sexual abuse, violent deaths, death by stabbing, rape, strangulation, burning and mutilation of their bodies.
She said some cases were results from a man beating a woman because she couldn’t cook; forbidden his wife to go to school or accusations of infidelity.
Ajayi said: “In Nigeria, in the first half of this year alone, from January to June, we’ve had 46 cases of femicide.
“From January to June, about five cases in Lagos, and up till date, we’ve had about 11 cases in one state alone and over the years we’ve had hundreds of cases in Lagos state.”
According to Ajayi, DOHS wrote a letter to the speaker of the house, Mr Mudashiru Obasa, in April and received a response on Aug. 19, from Mrs Omolara Olumegbon, the lawmaker in charge of women affairs.
Ajayi said the summary of the response was that, though femicide was not expressly stated in the domestic and sexual violence agency law and criminal code of the state, both laws sufficiently addressed incidents of domestic violence against women.
“The domestic and sexual violence law of Lagos state does not capture what femicide is.
“It protects against domestic violence before and after it happens but then when these women, who have experienced violence over time die, what happens, how do they get justice?
“There’s a pattern, in our view, once there’s an attempted case of femicide, the person should be charged with femicide.
“A woman that was beaten with a machete by her husband, that’s an intent to murder and should not be treated just as domestic violence but femicide,” she said.
She urged the lawmakers not to overlook the femicide bill but to adopt it either into the criminal code or the domestic and sexual violence law of the state.
NAN also reports that when the group arrived at the Assembly, they were not granted entry by the security personnel at the gate.
Mr Abiodun Tobun, the lawmaker representing Epe Constituency 1, who addressed the group, assured them that the house would look into the bill.
“We have to do the first reading, then the second reading; be assured that we will deliver your message to the speaker,” he said. (NAN)
Joan Odafe
