Politics and Society
“If a woman cheats, she should be stoned to death,” says Ghanaian MP
Hanging a woman or stoning her to death for committing adultery are the types of prescriptions one would expect to hear nowadays from places controlled by ISIS or Boko Haram terrorists. One hardly expects to hear of such in Ghana…
Published
10 years agoon

Hanging a woman or stoning her to death for committing adultery are the types of prescriptions one would expect to hear nowadays from places controlled by ISIS or Boko Haram terrorists. One hardly expects to hear of such in Ghana, one of Africa’s leading democracy lights, and certainly not from a member of its parliament. But that was the prescription given by Nelson Abudu Baani, a Ghanaian member of parliament representing Daboya Makarigu, according to a report by Modern Ghana.
In a shocking statement first made in parliament last Thursday, Baani suggested the inclusion of the sharia-like provision as MPs discussed a law which intends to give more rights to widows as regards the property of their deceased husbands.
Baani repeated the suggestion when interviewed by Ghanaian newspaper, Starr News. “Why not?” he said, when asked if he stood by his suggestion, “Is it fair for her to cheat?”
Apart from the barbarism of his suggestion, there is currently no law in Ghana which outlaws adultery. Besides the “honourable” MP is silent on whether the capital punishment should also be given to adulterous men or if women commit a more severe kind of adultery.
Meanwhile a civil society group, Occupy Ghana, is demanding for an apology from Baani, as well as his immediate resignation.
“OccupyGhana calls on the Honourable MP for Daboya Makarigu in the Northern Region, Nelson Abudu Baani, to apologise for and retract his misogynistic statement made in Parliament calling for Ghana to emulate the disgraceful example of Afghanistan by hanging or stoning women deemed guilty of adultery, and then to resign from Ghana’s august House of Parliament,” said the group in a statement.
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