–bigger issue is violation of the rights of girls and women

“INJUSTICE anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. This quote from Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., summed up the consensus at a public forum organised by the Women’s Progressive Organisation (WPO) to make pellucid its condemnation of the kidnapping of 276 Nigerian girls, and to express solidarity with the people of that embattled nation.

The militant Islamist group which kidnapped the girls from their school in Chibok in the north-eastern state of Borno on April 14 – ‘Boko Haram’, headed by Abubakar Shekau — has promised to sell the girls and marry them

off. Some 53 of the girls have since escaped their captors.

The captive girls are thought to be held in a remote and forested area of the state close to the border with Chad and Cameroon.

The WPO session, held at Red House yesterday, saw the support of approximately 50 persons. Ms Sheila Veerasammy, General-Secretary of the WPO, the women’s arm of the ruling party, noted that the bigger issue at hand is not only the kidnapping of the young school girls, but the violation of the rights of girls and women.

This sentiment was reiterated by representatives of the Central Islamic Organisation of Guyana (CIOG), the Guyana Hindu Dharmic Sabha (GHDS) and the Christian Community.

Zahora Deen from the CIOG made it clear that Muslims the world over are guided in their daily lives by the Quran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, and nothing in either source indicates approval of maltreatment of women.

“Women have a right to education and to work,” she stressed as she referred to several practising Muslim women who have scaled professional and academic heights locally and internationally.

Deen also declared that the principles of Islam teach respect for all, and peace as well as equality for women.

She posited that Guyanese women must stand in solidarity with women and girls, regardless of the geographical and other borders.

“We have a duty toward them,” Deen said.

She also expressed the CIOG’s vehement condemnation of the act, and rejected the assertions being peddled that the kidnapping and other atrocities are in any way related to the teachings of Islam.

GHDS’s Pandit Devnarine Singh pointed out that children, the wealth of any country, have the right to be protected; not assaulted by adults.

Reverend Kwame Gilbert added his condemnation of the acts of the Boko Haram group on behalf of the Christian Community.

He stated that the role and value of women are too often misconstrued, but, like the Quran, the Bible states clearly that women are in no way relegated to any position of inferiority.

Gilbert added that women have historically contributed to the improvement of human development, and that empowerment through education is quintessential.

“This is an act against humanity,” Reverend Gilbert stressed, and that point was adumbrated by the General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Mr Clement Rohee, who also was present at the public forum.

Rohee said the expression of solidarity from peoples across the globe is a reflection of humanity and the impression on their psyches when the atrocities involving young girls were made public.
He called on those at Red House to grasp the magnitude of the incident by looking at it through “local lens”, with the local context in mind, and recognise the impact of expressing solidarity.

Rohee said the ruling party has, over the years, expressed its solidarity with many “just causes”, including human rights and the fight for independence, among other things.

The General-Secretary also stated that expressing solidarity with the Nigerian people is important, given the increasing integration of the world and the globalisation move.

“What happens in one country affects others…we have to think local and act global,” he said.

The latest report from Nigeria, according to the BBC, was that teachers countrywide have held a day of protest in support of the girls, and the teaching unions said they were also marching in memory of the 173 teachers killed by militants.

(By Vanessa Narine)