‘Rape has nothing to do with beauty’
A gender advocate, Mrs Paulina Tangoba Abayege, has described rape as the show of strength of men over women, pointing out that it has nothing to do with beauty.
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Reacting to comments purported to have been made by a security analyst, Mr Irbard Ibrahim, that Fulani men would not rape Ghanaian women because Fulani women were more beautiful than Ghanaian women, she explained that the issue of rape had nothing much to do with the beauty of the victim, and that it was more of a psychological problem.
Factors
Mrs Abayage said beauty formed a small fraction of the factors that caused people to rape, asking, “If rape had something to do with beauty, why would a man leave all the beautiful girls around and rape a toddler?”
She said rape was a punishment weapon used by the alleged Fulani herdsmen, not to satisfy their libido, but to punish, especially the husbands of the victims in the affected communities.
Background
Mr Ibrahim, who was speaking on Class FM, an Accra-based radio station, was quoted to have said that “Fulani women are light-skinned and attractive, and more beautiful than Ghanaian women, and so there is no need for Fulani herdsmen to go about raping Ghanaian women as always claimed by indigenes who play host to the nomads”.
The issue of Fulani herdsmen raping and killing some Ghanaian women and men had generated a lot of reactions in the affected communities.
The recent one was when some youth in Agogo, a town in the Ashanti Region, demonstrated on Tuesday, January 26, and resolved to sack all Fulani herdsmen from the area.
Psychology behind rape
“For somebody to think that rape is caused by the beauty of the victim, the person has to read more on the psychology behind rape,” Mrs Abayage said.
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She also rejected the claim that the Fulanis were more religious and that they would not compromise their religion to rape people, saying “how many times do they go to the mosque?”
“These Fulanis are nomads. They build a strong wall of protection around their wives and will kill for their wives,” she said, noting, “No Fulani man will rape a Fulani woman because he knows the consequence.”