Hundreds of women in Ivory Coast took to the streets of Abidjan on Saturday to protest the increase in violence against women.
Baptized “offensive orange,” the movement saw more than 2,000 women march against rape calling it “a weapon of mass destruction with side effects spanning many lives and generations”.
The demonstrators marched through the streets, clad in orange, with slogans that included “Rape is a crime, oppose it” and “Zero rape in my country”.
“Time up for rapists!” said the Ivorian women’s minister Nasseneba Toure, who was flanked at the front of the march by the EU’s ambassador to Ivory Coast and a UN women’s representative.
According to Toure, there were 625 rapes between January and October 2021, while 822 were reported in 2020 compared to 693 the year before.
Nearly 2,500 cases of violence against women were recorded in 2019 and 2020 in Abidjan alone, according to a study by an NGO published last month.
Malamita Ouattara, member of the Ivory Coast Activists Collectif (CACI), told AFP that “silence remains the norm” and the victims “are quicker to speak out when they are placed in the position of witness.”
Last August, a TV host was sentenced to 12 months in prison after inviting an “ex-rapist” to explain how he went about abusing his victims.
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