By Ruth Oginyi
An Ebonyi-based Legal practitioner, Barr. Ijeoma Ajanwachukwu, says couple’s separation in marriages is one of the best way to save lives from deaths arising from domestic violence in different homes.
She said couple separation for the main time was the way to go when husband and wife disagreement in their marriages reach its climax with threat to life.
Ajanwachukwu who works with the State’s Ministry of Justice spoke yesterday in Abakaliki Development Centre, Abakaliki Local Government Area of the State during the training and establishment of End Female Genital Mutilation Community Surveillance Team in the Local Government organized by National Orientation Agency, (NOA) with support from United Nations Children’s Education Fund(UNICEF).She accused mothers of not living up to their responsibilities in their homes and urged them to rise up and protect their wards from domestic violence.“If your daughter who is in a marriage comes to you as her mother in your husband place to narrate to you what she has been passing through, don’t advise her to remain in the marriage especially if she is being maltreated by her own husband”, she admonished.“Don’t tell her that marriage is all about endurance and that if you open your mouth and tell her what your own husband who is her father is doing you, she will not believe it. Most of us mothers do this and our daughters who are in marriages will remain in hell in their marriages. At times, they will be brought back to us as corpses or we will be called to come and carry their corpses because they are dead. Continuing, the Gender-Based-Violence activist said, “I am not canvassing for divorce in any marriage but my own is let the woman’s life remains while the problem in her marriage is looked into for resolution. If the woman and the husband have reached the stage that a life can be lost in their marriage, the best thing is for two of them to get separated for meantime. Many couples do this and after a while, they will realize their mistakes and make up and become husband and wife again. But at that particular time the man and the woman don’t agree, if you force them, somebody will die.”
“I as a Lawyer have handled cases where a woman killed her husband and where a husband killed his wife, it has happened severally. But we women, we have failed the society. We mothers, we have failed the society because we are not living up to expectations.
It is the duty of a mother to know what is happening in her home. We always stay in our home and our house helps are impregnated. The one we have learned now is when the house help get impregnated, we move her to another place share she delivers the baby and we sell the baby”, she further counseled.
In his remarks, the State’s UNICEF Desk Officer, Uchenna Unah called on the women to ensure that all forms violence against women, girls and children were eliminated in the area. Unah urged them to encourage survivors of gender-based violence to speak up.
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