The Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), has called for stiffer penalties against perpetrators of violence against women and children.
The association made the call on Thursday in Lafia at its Zone D Executive Council meeting.
Mrs. Ifeyinwa Omowole, NAWOJ President, who was represented by Ladi Bala, National Secretary of the association, said that perpetrators should be made to spend the rest of their lives in jail.
The NAWOJ President said that life sentence would serve as a deterrent to others and protect the vulnerable groups in the society.
Ifeyinwa attributed the increasing rate of the menace to delay in justice delivery and the inability of the victims of such violence or their family members to expose perpetrators.
“The existing laws on violence against women should be reviewed in order to ensure very stringent penalty for perpetrators of such heinous crimes and their collaborators.
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“Prosecutors and Judges handling gender-based violence should be empowered to expedite action in dispensing justice,” she added.
The NAWOJ President described those abusing women and children as “evil”, saying that they were a “disgrace to humanity”.
She promised that NAWOJ members would use their pens and voices to expose perpetrators of the violence and follow each case to its logical conclusion until justice was served.
In their remarks, Hadiza Umar and Jamila Abubakar, Chairman, Nasarawa chapter of NAWOJ, and Vice President, Zone-D, respectively, said that perpetrators of these violence over the years went unpunished due to some cultural beliefs and failure to expose perpetrators.
The duo, therefore, called on parents to ensure that children were not left under the care of strangers and family members with questionable character.
In a remark, Wilson Bako, Vice President, Zone-D, Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), called on government to prioritise the welfare of women and children in Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps across the country.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that the meeting had in attendance NAWOJ members from states in the North-Central, including Abuja.
NAN also reports that the meeting focused on “Violence Against Women and Children”. (NAN).