NamRights to sue over Olufuko
NamRights to sue over Olufuko

NamRights to sue over Olufuko

The human rights organisation says the cultural festival is more like a strip show where young girls are put on display for men with money.
Catherine Sasman
NamRights is preparing a lawsuit to stop the Olufuko festival and other cultural practices that it considers harmful sexual initiations.

It intends to lodge the legal challenge before the end of the year, and argues Olufuko is unconstitutional because it seeks to convert young children into adult, child-bearing women.

It says the festival deprives and robs children of their normal and natural childhood-to-adulthood mental and physical development, and that it is simply illegal, both in terms of international customary, humanitarian and human rights laws.

NamRights says the Olufuko festival is also contrary to Namibia's contemporary, civil, cultural, political and social customs and practices, and parades poor, bare-breasted girls in public without their consent to attract economic investments for affluent families.

The organisation says further that the festival is criminal enterprise, which constitutes indecent exposure, and holds nothing positive in terms of culture and tradition.





“It is children being taken to a trade fair where they are paraded in what can only be described as a strip show. It is against the law and promotes patriarchy and is used to make women submissive,” said NamRights executive director Phil ya Nangoloh.

Ya Nangoloh said the original Olufuko initiation practice was to avoid girl children being burned alive for getting pregnant before marriage.

Now, he said, this heinous practice has been outlawed by statutory and constitutional law.

“NamRights is not at all concerned with Olufuko for adult women above the age of 18, as long as this is done with their consent. We are only against Olufuko for children younger than the age of 18,” Ya Nangoloh said.

“We are very confident and certain about the victorious outcome of the imminent legal battle. The defendants can hire the best legal minds they know in this country or even beyond, but that will not save them from a legal blow. We will show them their folly and buffoonery,” Ya Nangoloh said.

NamRights has called on anyone with a substantial and direct interest in the matter to join its legal challenge.

The principal defenders of the lawsuit will be the Outapi town council, the Omusati regional council, the Ombalantu traditional authority, Founding President Sam Nujoma, the Sam Nujoma Foundation, the ministers of justice and safety and security, the attorney-general, the ombudsman, and a number of leading Namibian women.



'Captured women'

Ya Nangoloh said the sustained silence of some leading local female figures on the matter can only be construed as complicity in the harmful practice.

Among others, he singled out First Lady Monica Geingos, gender minister Doreen Sioka, Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila, Deputy Prime Minister Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, National Assembly deputy Speaker Loide Kasingo, culture minister Katrina Hanse-Himarwa, Swapo secretary-general Sophia Shaningwa and veteran ruling party politicians Dr Libertina Amathila and Pendukeni Iivula-Ithana.

“They either actively or passively promote or glamorise and/or tolerate the Olufuko festival,” Ya Nangoloh charged.

“Their silence demonstrates moral bankruptcy or political corruption and shows they are captured women, who are not free to speak out against such legal, moral and social outrages.”

To this, First Lady Geingos responded: “Objective test: would I subject my daughter or any adolescent girl under my influence to Olufuko? My answer: No. I, however, believe in respecting the non-harmful practices of others and not viewing my belief system as superior.”

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (Elcin) has ordered its congregation not to attend the festival.

It holds the view that the Olufuko event promotes sexual activity or early marriages among young girls.

Nujoma, on the other hand, is on record as saying the festival is about cultural heritage and should be celebrated without fear.

Nujoma said at a gala dinner for the seventh edition of the Olufuko festival earlier this year that its critics promote cultural enslavement.

CATHERINE SASMAN

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Namibian Sun 2024-03-29

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