Thursday, 28th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Project Alert differs on call against abortion for rescued women

By Ekwy P. Uzoanya
21 May 2015   |   3:09 am
PROJECT Alert on Violence Against Women, a non-governmental organisation has decried the position of the Foundation for African Cultural Heritage (FACH), a coalition of NGOs which rejected abortion as an option for rehabilitating the pregnant women rescued by the Nigerian Army from Sambisa forest.
The abducted Chibok girls

The abducted Chibok girls

PROJECT Alert on Violence Against Women, a non-governmental organisation has decried the position of the Foundation for African Cultural Heritage (FACH), a coalition of NGOs which rejected abortion as an option for rehabilitating the pregnant women rescued by the Nigerian Army from Sambisa forest.

The Executive Director of 
Project Alert, Josephine Effah-Chukwuma, in a statement made available to The Guardian yesterday, condemned the online report credited to the Director of FACH, Mr. Sonnie Ekwowusi while donating some cash to National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to assist with the girls’ rehabilitation that it is unreasonable and illogical to subject the girls to a traumatic, violent and life-threatening abortion process.

Effah-Chukwuma warned: “This is not the time or occasion for politics of any kind,” noting that “the decision whether to have abortion or not is the exclusive decision of the girls in close consultation with their immediate families.”

According to her: “The law on abortion in Nigeria definitely does not hold water in this case. So also should religious sentiments not hold sway. For once as a people, let’s be real and not hypocritical. For as many of the girls who want to keep the pregnancy should be supported to do so; and for as many who want to abort it, should be supported to do so.”

She said that the donation made by FACH does not give them the right to decide what is in the best interest of the girls who have been subjected to months of unimaginable physical, sexual and psychological terror. 

“What greater trauma, violence and life threatening situation can the women/girls face than what they were subjected to during the months of their captivity?” she queried.

0 Comments