VAPP bill: Women seek life imprisonment for rapists

Nigerian women have called on the National Assembly (NASS) to pass the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Bill, urging life imprisonment for increasing number of rapists in the country.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Equity Advocates, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Ms Ene Ede, stated this during the Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) of Nigeria, Community Sensitisation Enlightenment Campaign on the VAPP Bill, in Kuje Town Hall.
She said the bill was the surest guarantee for people to live with each other peacefully, as well as enhance women capacity to engage her society by eroding fear.
She said: “Nigeria is indebted to women for not keeping to the UN conventions it has signed in the past. The bill is set to stop the physical, mental, sexual, emotional and the political abuse of women. It is disappointing to know that people still sell their conscience to politicians even though they don’t keep to their promises.
“You can see the level of violence in the country today, if the law is in place one can sue the federal government for not providing adequate security to citizens, just yesterday there is news of threats of bombing Abuja and this should not be so.
“Somebody has said that some men are so evil that it is only such strict laws that can stop them. The bill is ‘a woman liberating law’. It is about unifying, and encouraging peace and love amongst Nigerians.”
Earlier, organiser of the advocacy, Barrister Ether Omaka, said the campaign was to let citizens know about the existence of the VAPP bill “so as to support its passage into law.”
Omaka said though the penalties in the bill were strict, if passed into law it would bring peace in the country, “because people will checkmate each other and so reduce the level of crime.”