Youths in the Agunese Affam-Mmaku in Awgu Local government area of Enugu caused an outrage by stripping and parading a 57-year-old widow for collecting snails in a ‘sacred forest.’
The youths could be seen in a viral video on social media parading the woman around the community and beating her in the process. They also forced her to carry the basket of snails on her head.
A Women group in Enugu condemned the act and called on the authorities to bring those involved to book.
“It hurts further to know that these snails are not lab-manufactured or already offered to the god’s but termed sacred on the basis of archaic laws,” the women group said in a joint statement
“We raise our voices in the loudest to condemn this impunity, this shame called protecting a supposed sacred site. We outrightly lend our voices and actions to declare to the world that this is totally unacceptable. This act is wild and desperately annoying.
“How do we preserve this woman’s nudity after parading her nakedness to the world? The swiftness and virality of social media is not one to be joked with as we can shamefully agree that half of the world must have seen this by now .
“We condemn every part of this and say that the culprits must be brought to book. They must apologize to the women folk nationwide and pay a huge sum to this woman after packing bags of snails to plead with her.”
