Stop abusing women, UPND told

Tue, 30 May 2017 10:00:48 +0000

By ANNIE ZULU AND MUKOSELA KASALWE

PARADING naked supporters, mostly women by the UPND has been condemned by the Church and the Zambia National Women’s Lobby Group.

Zambia National Women’s Lobby National Chairperson Beauty Katebe  said the continued use of women, paraded half naked for cameras, as means to express a dissatisfaction by the UPND, was totally inhuman, immoral and demeaning to women folks.

And the Church is disappointed with the conduct of UPND national chairperson Mutale Nalumango and Mazabuka Central Member of Parliament Gary Nkombo for allegedly parading party supporters naked as a way of displaying their displeasure over the incarceration of their leader Hakainde Hichilema, says Evangelical Youth Alliance executive director Moses Lungu.

In separate interviews with the Daily Nation, both leaders expressed displeasure at the opposition party leadership for encouraging behaviour that demeaned women.

Reverend Lungu said that politics should not erode the moral fibre of the nation and has urged citizens to uphold sound morals irrespective of their political affiliation.He said the behaviour of the UPND leadership to subject their supporters to expose their nakedness in public and full view of their children was uncalled for and that as a church they were dismayed with such conduct and questioned the conscious of those who took part in the act.

The clergyman said the nation should go back to its cultural values and Christian principles.

The non-governmental organisation said the UPND should use other means to express their displeasure on any matter saying the human body was sacred and could not be exposed anyhow.

“As the Evangelical Youth Alliance we are deeply concerned with the behaviour of the UPND leadership who took advantage of their supporters and subjected them to expose their nakedness in the 21st century.

The human body is scared and cannot be exposed anyhow, how do you undress before your children?” he said

He said freedom should not be construed as lawlessness or action that would infringe on the rights of others as the privilege also came with huge responsibilities. Rev. Lungu said that there was no crisis in the nation that would warrant such behaviour from the UPND and that Zambia had continued to be admired for its virtues in the dispensation of justice. And Ms Katebe has advised women to desist from being used by political parties to parade naked in the streets as a means of airing grievances.

Last week, some opposition UPND women supporters staged a protest at the party secretariat and stripped off as a form of protest at the incarceration of their leader Hakainde Hichilema.

The women exposed their breasts and underwear and displayed placards reading “Zambia is not a police state, release HH now!”