From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
A child and gender rights advocacy group, Men Against Rape Foundation (MARF), has described as traumatic and against global practice, the parading of Peter Nwachukwu, the embattled husband of late gospel singer, Osinachi Nwachukwu, before his children and wife’s relatives.
The spokesman of the Ministry of Women Affairs, Olujimi Oyetomi, had, in a statement, said, Nwachukwu was paraded during a visit of the Minister of Women Affairs, Pauline Tallen, to the Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba, on April 20, 2022.
In a statement issued by its Executive Director, Lemmy Ughegbe, the group, while condemning the act, noted that parading their father before them, especially after the trauma of losing their mother to years of abuse by the same man, will only do them more harm than the group.
The group called on the Minister of Women Affairs to instead focus on the management of the late gospel singer’s three children for trauma, rather than expose them to more traumatizing events.
Ughegbe wondered why Tallen was more interested in posing for the camera than the state of the mental health of Osinachi’s children.
He said despite MARF’s unalloyed stand that the late singer’s husband be made to face the full wrath of the law, global best practices and even common sense forbid that the children be exposed to a parade of their father for it further traumatizes them.
He said their father can be paraded even on the street for all he cares, but the children who are minors ought not be exposed to it in line with global best practices.
Ughegbe said the minister was too well traveled and exposed to feign ignorance of the psychosocial consequences of continually exposing the children to traumatizing experiences, such as parading their father before them, especially after the trauma of losing their mother to years of abuse by the same man.