Women Protest Against Anti-abortion Oath

 Ogbakiri women protest against antiabortion oath

…Say age long vow making them give birth like ‘animals'

Women of Ogbakiri Community in Emohua Local Government of Rivers State have call on government and women right defenders in the state to rescue them from the bondage of a traditional oath that forbids abortion by the community’s women.

.              

They blamed the oath for unwanted babies in the community, adding that it is making them “reproduce like animals”.

The women made the call during a protest on Tuesday and called for the reversal of the agelong oath.

Sources say abortion is regarded as sacrilege and a crime against the spirit of the land.

“Any woman born and married in Ogbakiri must respect the tradition and those who violated it die in the process of aborting their babies. No right thinking woman in Ogbakiri in this present generation can dare the gods,” an octogenarian in the community said.

However, the women said the protest was aimed at drawing the attention of government and human right organizations to their plights and to save them from the dangers inherent in the tradition.

Comfort Woji said: “We are no longer comfortable with the tradition that is why we decided to protest against it. We are human beings the law should not be greater than our lives. Most of us have more children than we can control because we are afraid of abortion.

“If as a housewife I have agree with my husband that I will not have any other baby again and mistakenly pregnancy comes I should be the one to decided if I am to keep it or abort it, no one should force me to do what I don’t intend to do,” she added.

Speaking in the same vein, Josephine Onu, said: “I am not saying I want to abort my babies, but such decision is personal and such personal right should be respected. I think NGOs in the state and Rivers State should come into this matter and rescue us from this law.”

But Chiyere Amadi said the fight to loose women from the bondage is for the sake of their daughters, saying, “For many years now we are in bondage, we are doing this to save our daughters in future we don’t want them to suffer what we are suffering today.”