Mrs Betty Akeredolu, the wife of the Ondo State Governor on Monday, raised alarm over the rate of rape incident and defilement of women across Nigeria.
Mrs Akeredolu who made her feelings known in Akure at the opening ceremony of the 2019 BeMore Summer Boot Camp, said there is a need for stakeholders to do something urgent to curtail the rising cases of rape in the society.
She, however, challenged women and girl child to obtain skills that will enable them to defend themselves against molestation by the male folks.
She said: “Women should not limit themselves to the status provided for them by culture, tradition, religion and society but to challenge the status-quo that prevented their growth.
“Women are sailing on troubled waters and those who supposed to take care of the girlchild are those who sexually assaulted them.
“The captains of the ship seem to have taken their hands off the wheel. We are left bare, exposed and without protection, we thought we had. Wolves in the wilderness, the hyenas, they come at us from all angles, it keeps getting worse, they keep coming and no one says nothing.
“The girl folk is being hunted, in every way we are hunted. First, we should not speak, we must not stand eyeball to eyeball with the men. And now, we are here being molested as though we are lesser beings. But we know what we have to do to protect ourselves; we know where we have to stand to have our voices heard.”
She said that “The marginalisation of women folk made BeMore Boot Summer Camp imperative in order to train girl-child to be less dependent on men and to challenge the status-quo that limit their progress.
According to her, “750 girls have been trained to change the narrative of the girl child, and bring that balance to the gender world that would ensure that no girl is looked down on. Another 250 sets of girls would be trained in this edition of the Summer Camp.
She condemned the rape of a 300 level student of the State-owned Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko (AAUA), saying she was not happy over the development.
She, however, assured that her office would equip every girl child to defend herself.
Credit: tribuneonlineng.com
