In Côte d’Ivoire, the first edition of the Festival of Consent, the FestiCo, closed on Saturday March 12. On the occasion of International Women’s Rights Day, the event was held at the University of Cocody and aimed to raise students’ awareness of the notion of consent and gender-based violence.
With our correspondent in Abidjan, Sidy Yansane
For two days, the forum room of Félix Houphouët-Boigny University hosted workshops, conferences and artistic activities around women’s rights and their consent in their relationship with men.
The weight of patriarchy
Lawyer and activist Sylvia Apata made a noteworthy intervention, deploring the weight of patriarchy in Africa: “ When we talk about the status of women, we are always quick to brandish culture. Except that if we wanted to look at our religious rules, I assure you that, even no road, we would have had. It is the customary guides and traditional customary chiefs who must take part in the fight “.
Youssouf Ouattara is a sociology student. For him, this festival is necessary: “ In the meantime, it still says the woman in the kitchen. So, we see here through these different panels, the emancipation of women who no longer want to be excluded from decisions but who now want their consent to be obtained before acting, and all that “.
The “ strength to speak »
The Stop the Black Cat association organized the event. Its president and founder Bénédicte Joan is satisfied with this first edition: “ They all reacted. They were students who originally had no concept of consent. They began to cry in my ears and today they have the strength to speak. So, it is really a pride to see, through these two days, that there are students who have interacted with the panelists and the moderators. “.
According to Ivorian NGOs, Abidjan alone has had more than 2,000 cases of violence against women in the past two years, half of which were rapes.
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