Our women, our future

Issues on women and children are gaining more attention universally, There are laws on the rights and privileges of women and children with a view to afford them the opportunity of contributing their quota to the development of their society in particular and human race in general.

But despite these laws many women and children suffer oppression and deprivation as they have become tools in hands of men to satisfy their desires or to serve them as keepers of their homes and up bringers of their children.

In the ancient traditional African society, women were relegated to background as they were often regarded as inheritable property along with other household goods and chattels. Daughters were often buried alive when they were young while those spared to become women were sold into matrimony as personal properties of their husbands, who could deal with them as they pleased.

Among the Hindus, for instance, the birth of a girl child was a bad omen, asserting that “there is no creature more sinful than a woman”. In Japan, she was not allowed to take part in any religious exercise. In China, she was not allowed to enter temples. In India, she has nothing to do with the sacred text as she was regarded as impure and a symbol of falsehood. Under the Roman law, a woman was dependent on her husband, she could not even make a valid will or a contract. Another codification described women as “the dragon,” the “instrument of inequality” and “a scorpion ever ready to sting”. These were the treatment meted out to women folk.

But all that has changed as women are now seen as components for co-existence of human and all creatures in the world.

We should, therefore, be real to our women. Our women are princesses and queens, we should take a very good care of them they are just like an egg at the top of a silver tray.

Let’s love and care for the women folk. Women’s rights should be respected while their empowerment should be facilitated for betterment of our community.

Sadanu Abubakar,

Department Of Mass Communication

University of Maiduguri

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