Worried by rising incidents of violence against women and children including modern day slavery- cum-trafficking involving girls, Dr. Nonye Soludo, Anambra State First Lady, recently challenged women to rise up to the occasion as they return home for this years August Meeting, writes Kasie Abone from Awka
The annual general congress held by Igbo women every August is here again. Every year, Women from South East of Nigeria travel to their matrimonial homes from diaspora and the cities to join their counterpart in the homefront to discuss matters bothering on community and church development, women and child related issues among many other matters.
Kicking off this year’s edition of the August Meeting, the wife of the state governor, Dr. Nonye Soludo’s attention was focused on violent assaults on women and children.
Worried by the escalating incidents of brutalities and brazen abuses of children’s rights, the Anambra State government has intensified her fight against human trafficking and domestic violence coupled with severe punishment for the culprits, in order to ensure a disciplined and a better livable society.
Reading the riot acts in keynote address while flagging off the 2023 Annual Women’s Summit at the Prof. Dora Akunyili Women Development Centre, Awka the Anmabra State capital, recently, the wife of the state governor, Mrs. Nonye Soludo, tasked all women and every patriotic citizen of the state to join hands with Governor Charles Soludo’s government to rout out the scourge of child abuse, human trafficking, poverty unemployment and devastating effects of illicit drugs on the youths in order to redeem the society from total collapse.
Soludo emphasised that the theme of this year’s Women summit “Women:Agents of Change for Sustainable Development” was apt to highlight the dispensable roles of mothers in the socio economic and general upliftment of the family and society, at large, through their innumerable roles and contributions to children upbringing, home management to augment efforts of their ever busy husbands as well as engagements in various endeavours to boost the economy.
The level which signified the commencement of the famous annual August Meetings usually organised by the womenfolk in virtually all the communities throughout the 21 local government areas of the state, pulled mammoth crowd of participants, resplendently adorning different uniforms including female political topnotchers, women leaders of religious bodies from various towns unions, market women associations leaders as well as the academia.
Dr. Soludo harped on the necessity for the women to key into the revolutionary agricultural policies of the incumbent administration for massive coconut and palm trees cultivation freely provided by the government to the populace while also embracing the campaign against all manners of domestic violence, like maltreatment of housemaids, wife battery by men and usage of underaged children of school age as slaves or street hawkers.
She frowned against mothers who revolt against neighbours and school teachers for correcting their erring children which usually destroy the future of such pampered children to stray away as outlaws and drug addicts, thereby ending up as school dropouts and criminals, stressing that a lot still needed to be done by mothers to get the society right on track for a stable, livable and prosperous society in the interest of the present generation and posterity.
To give desired weight and meaning to her advocacy, the Anambra State first called out the Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs. Ify Obinabo, before the audience and directed her to intensify action towards curbing child trafficking, just as she warned of further severe consequences for anybody giving underaged children as househelps which she attributed as the root cause of random child trafficking as gross abuse of children’s rights.
Expatiating on the objectives of her pet youth orientation initiative, tagged “Healthy Living Club” introduced for school children in the state, Mrs. Soludo elucidated that encouragement of healthy existence through balanced diet, physical exercises and engagement in meaningful economic activities would always augur well for sound health.
The colourful ceremony also featured lectures by experts on potential roles of women in poverty alleviation, inclusive democratic norms, decent home upbringing of children and other diverse issues relating to enthronement of peace, order and progress in the state.
It was a consensus view of the resource persons that parents especially mothers should gird their loins and rise up to expectations in helping their husbands and the government in the onerous tasks of achieving the cardinal objectives of the present government to make the state a reference point in clean, green, livable and prosperous entity as well as investors first choice destination in the country.
Commissioner for Women Affairs, Mrs. Obinabo, had earlier briefly addressed the participants on the essence of the 2023 Mothers Summit; while the female member in the state House of Assembly, Hon. Nkechi Ogbuefi, also addressed the women and urged the government to increase empowerment programmes to them as major stakeholders in the scheme of things.
The Magistrate in charge of the Special Court on gender based crimes, Genevieve Osakwe, equally enlightenment the audience on the issues concerning the rights of children and women, and punishments prescribed by the law against offenders, just as she urged mothers to pay attention to their children closely as basic measure to avert any derailment.
The resource persons, Mrs. Sylvia Agbaniru and Dr. Casmir Nnaemeka, dwelt extensively on the basic roles of mothers in the families and hectic responsibilities of raising their children in the proper ways, vehemently warning that any negligence might result in hazardous and sad consequences on the entire society at large
