A Human Rights Activist, Kinna Likimani, has described as “regressive”, the proposal by the Member of Parliament (MP) for Daboya/Mankarigu that adulterous women must be stoned or hanged.
The Daboya/Mankarigu Legislator, Nelson Abudu Baani, believes the directive will help women remain faithful to their husband and serve as a deterrent to others.
He made the suggestion during a debate on the Interstate Succession bill in Parliament on Thursday.
His comments has outraged many Ghanaians with some calling on him to apologize for what they describe as offensive comments.
Speaking on Eyewitness News, Likimani criticized the MP for making such recommendations saying, it is blasphemy for him to make such comments in Parliament.
[contextly_sidebar id=”XgUXrlT4PxbX465OJtaiploaBPcBmacT”]“I want to say that it is absolute blasphemy for an MP to stand in the Parliament of 2014 Republic of Ghana and advocate a cruel and unusual punishment like stoning.”
The Human Rights Activist posited that such a cruel punishment will not be effective and applicable in a country such as Ghana.
“If he[MP] wants the punishment of Taliban run Afaghanistan to be a model for punishment in Ghana, he should please do us a favour and go and stand as an MP in Afghanistan but not in this country where we are trying so hard to develop…If he wants to do stoning, a lot of countries do stoning, he should go there,” she fumed.
According to her, “Ghana has traveled a long way to get to where we are, we have a longer road ahead of us and we will not be doing Taliban style punishment in this country.”
“The times when wives will labour on behalf of their husbands, build communal property, their husbands will die and the property will go back to their family, and leave the wife bereft … has passed and gone,” she remarked.
The MP said the Interstate Succession Bill is biased towards women and therefore suggested that the bill should be suspended.
But in a rebuttal, Kinna argued that “the bill actually addresses the current situation in which, wives, widows are left bereft after having laboured with their husbands for communal property.”
She was convinced that the bill is rather a remedy for women who have not benefited from properties they attained with their husbands.
“As far as I am concerned, the Republic of Ghana give laws for the benefit of religious groups. If we make a law, it applies to everybody. The country is made of non religious people, it is made up of religious group…we are moving towards a more unified group”
By: Marian Efe Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @EfeAnsah