Pretoria – The Minister of Social Development Bathabile Dlamini has called on the international community, the African Union and the Nigerian government to do whatever it can to liberate the 230 school girls kidnapped in Nigeria.
The girls were taken from a school in the town of Chibok, in northern Nigeria, three weeks ago.
Yesterday, an extremist Nigerian insurgent leader boasted that he had kidnapped the school girls in a video released to Agence France-Presse.
In the video, the man claiming to be Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, says: "I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah … There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell. I will sell women. I sell women.”
Minister Dlamini said the words were chilling and an indication of the horrors facing the abducted girls.
“As the Minister of Social Development in South Africa, where we also face unacceptable levels of violence against women and children, I call on the international community, the African Union and the Nigerian Government to do whatever it can to liberate these girls from such modern day slavery and, to bring the perpetrators to book,” she said on Tuesday.
The minister said it was unacceptable that in the 21st Century, women and girls were still treated as subjects to be bought and sold.
“While our immediate concerns are with the terrified young girls and their families, we need to tackle the underlying factors that sustain these kinds of crimes. The idea that girls and women are sexual objects, or, only there to be married off to men, is core to the ideology of male superiority, an ideology nurtured by religious and cultural belief systems throughout Africa and the world.”
She said there was a need to work with the AU and all the government in Africa to commit to the fundamental emancipation of women.
“Women and girls will only be safe and free when there is universal acceptance that women are and should be in control of their own lives including in control of their bodies. As long we treat the issue of women’s bodily integrity as relative to culture or religion and not a fundamental right, this oppression of women will continue,” said the minister.
She said that as the Minister of Social Development in South Africa, she would work with her counterparts on the continent.
“Now is the time to mobilise governments, civil society and other stakeholders to stop this war on women and girls and to fight for an Africa that respects the rights of all people without distinction.”
Government at the weekend said it condemned of all forms and manner of terrorism and believed that terrorism, in any form and from whichever quarter, cannot be condoned.
“The South African Government would like to express its concern about the fate of [the school girls] … the South African Government calls on the perpetrators of this heinous act to release the persons immediately and refrain from harming the kidnapped persons,” said government in a statement issued by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation on Friday. – SAnews.gov.za
