On world rights day, women, others urge new focus

From Lemmy Ughegbe (Abuja), Saxone Akhaine (Kaduna)

In pertinent parts:

AS the world yesterday marked International Day of Human Rights, members of International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) in Abuja have demonstrated against all cases of abuse and violence meted out on women, calling on Nigerians to lend their supports on new focus against such practices.
Also, the Coalition of Civil Society in the North yesterday cautioned the Federal Government on the increase cases of human rights violations in the country. It urged President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua to immediately put adequate security measures on ground to avoid the kind of Jos mayhem in any part of the country.

Speaking during the campaign rally, the Abuja Chairperson of FIDA, Mrs. Chinelo Iriele, who cited some statistics credited to the United Nation's Population Fund (UNFPA), claimed that between 700,000 and two million women are trafficked across international borders yearly for prostitution and slave labour.
Iriele further added that about six Nigerian girls are killed monthly in Italy by serial killers just as 30 per cent of Nigerians trafficked through the Sahara desert, who were mostly girls, die in transit.

The FIDA chairperson said at least 60 per cent of foreign prostitutes in Italy hail from African countries, adding that majority from Nigeria were between 10,000 and 15,000.
She alleged that women in Nigeria are being abused and treated wickedly in the areas of disinheritance, disempowerment, rape, incest, domestic servitude, harmful traditional practices, assault, abduction, trafficking, forced marriage, female genital cutting, forced prostitution and female infanticide.

The rally, which kicked off at Maitama office of the women lawyers through the Federal Secretariat, ended at the United Nations House where the Country Representative of UNFPA, Coulibaly Sidiki, pledged the support of the global body towards the fight against gender-based violence.
The lawmaker spoke yesterday at the NHRC auditorium in Abuja during a ceremony to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and International Human rights Day.

To underscore his call for genuine independence of the rights body, Inang cited the controversial sack of the commission's former executive secretary, Bukhari Bello, by Obasanjo.
He said that there is need for government to see human rights as a global issue rather than a personal matter, adding that it was high time government paid much attention to issues of human rights, considering their inalienable nature.