Rape: Benue beauty Queen Ene Daniels to empower 100 girls

Miss Idoma Ambassador, Queen Esther Ene Daniels, has disclosed that she had concluded arrangements to empower 100 young ladies drawn from the 9 local government areas of Benue South.

Addressing newsmen in Abuja on Friday, Miss Daniels said the move was a follow up to her campaign against rape.

Daniels had, in April this year, launched an online campaign tagged ‘Give Her Pen, Not Penis,’ apparently suggesting that the male folks should rather invest in the education of the girl-child and not to rape her.

She said: “I could not stand it that eight innocent young girls would fall victims of rape in just one week in Idoma land. That informed my outing on June 15, 2020, when I led over 200 young ladies to join other civil society groups in protest to the Och’Idoma palace, the Otukpo area Command and other authorities.

“This time, I have packaged a skill acquisition program that will last one week for 100 girls in Benue South, to be trained on various vocational skills, so as to be self reliant and well equipped economically against rape.”

She said the programme would hold in Otukpa, Ogbadibo local government area of Benue state, from September 7 – 12, 2020, adding that the skills to be acquired included “shoe-making, handbags, sanitiser, liquid soup, odour control, foot mats, throw pillows, cake baking, decoration and make-up,” while another group would be trained on snails/grasscutter farming and poultry and another group on how to design webs, apps and programming.

According to her, a certain amount shall be set aside as a takeoff capital for each participant while she monitors and mentors them for two months to ensure they are well-established.

On her source of funding, Miss Daniels said her family members, friends and some nongovernmental organisations would assist her, since her letters to government agencies and some political leaders did not yield any results.

She named the director-general of National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Dr. Ladan Mohammed Argungu, as chairman of the graduation ceremony which had been scheduled for September 12, 2020, in Benue.

Daniels further named Senator Abba Moro (Benue South) as Father of the Day; wife of Benue state governor, Mrs. Eunice Ortom, and wife of a former President of the Senate, Chief Helen Mark, as Mothers of the Day; while Senator Gabriel Suswam (Benue North East) is the distinguished guest of honour.

She also said the director-general, National Research Institute for Chemical Technology, Zaria, Prof. Jeffrey Barminas, had given the assurance that “a team of international experts shall be in Benue to train the participants on various products of relevance.”

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