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CTU Joins Call For Miss World Boycott
CTU Joins Call For Miss World Boycott
The Council of Trade Unions Women’s Council today backed the YWCA’s call for New Zealand to withdraw from the November Miss World pageant in Nigeria.
“It is simply not appropriate for New Zealand to send a participant while a Nigerian woman awaits death by stoning for having a child outside marriage ,” said CTU vice president Darien Fenton.
Darien Fenton said that Suffrage Day events tomorrow would mark the achievements for women’s rights in New Zealand.
“September 19 is a day of pride for New Zealand women,” she said.
“As we reflect on the right to vote, won by women 109 years ago, we also need to reflect on women who do not have human rights and support their struggles.”
Darien Fenton said boycotting the Miss World competition was in the spirit of standing up for the rights of women internationally.
“Union women wish to stand up with other New Zealand women and say it is wrong to send a representative of New Zealand to a pageant against the backdrop of this blatant denial of Amina Lawal Kurami’s human rights and the rights of other Nigerian women who risk the same fate,” she said.
It is widely acknowledged that huge international pressure resulted in the technical acquittal of Nigerian woman Safiya Hussaini’s death sentence in March this year.
“If that initial victory is to improve
human rights for Nigerian women, this second death sentence
must also be opposed,” said Darien Fenton.
New Zealand Council of Trade Unions
Te Kauae Kaimahi
The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Te Kauae Kaimahi brings together over 350,000 New Zealand union members in 40 affiliated unions. We are the united voice for working people and their families in New Zealand.
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