To
thousands of women who are in abusive and violent relationship and who
continued to bear the brunt of domestic violence, wife of Lagos State
governor, Mrs. Bolanle Ambode, has a sound advice: Abandon the marriage
and flee for your life so that you can live to tell your story.
Mrs
Ambode condemned in the strongest possible terms, the vexed issue of
domestic violence which has continued to rear its ugly head in the state
and across the country.
She made the denunciation in Alausa,
Ikeja, against the backdrop of one Mr. Lekan Shonde, who allegedly beat
his wife to death at the couple’s home in Egbeda suburb of the state.
Mrs.
Ambode lamented that domestic violence in the form of assault on wife,
child-beating and other forms of uncivilized behavior against women and
children, seems to have become an attraction for some men who are still
living in primitive times.
She described as totally unacceptable, a
situation where a man would callously turn his wife to a punching bag
on the flimsy excuse that the helpless woman had either insulted him or
refused to carry out his orders.
In her words, “How do you explain
a situation where the man you married and one who claims to love you,
would descend so heavily on you at the slightest provocation; if he is
not complaining about delayed dinner, it is another flimsy excuse that
is not tenable anywhere. They do it every now and then even to the
extent of killing the helpless woman. For how long will this go on?”
The
visibly distraught wife of the governor, advised any woman who found
herself in an abusive relationship to retrace her steps, so that she
could live to tell her own story.
While rejecting the common and
worn out excuse of societal stigmatization of women who abandoned
unpleasant marriages, Ambode retorted that when the woman dies in such a
cruel marriage, what then does the society say?
According to her,
“Many victims of domestic violence also become victims of their own
psychological realities. The world of these women is lonely, isolated
and filled with fear, with no emotional outlet whatsoever. Sadly,
victims wait until it is too late.”
“We should cease to treat
domestic violence as a case of family affair in order not to involve
ourselves. The fact that our society is patriarchal and a value
sanctioned by culture is not enough reason for this epidemic called
Domestic Violence.”
She maintained that domestic abuse should not only be perceived as a social problem, but also viewed as a criminal act.
Mrs.
Ambode however commiserated with all victims of domestic violence,
including families of those that died, urging all women facing similar
ordeal to approach the state’s Office of the Public Defender, Ministry
of Justice, Ministry of Youth & Social Development or the Ministry
of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation for legal assistance at no
cost.