Pauline Tallen, minister of women affairs, is seeking death penalty for rapists.
Speaking at the flag-off of the national cooking gas and tree planting project in Adamawa on Friday, Tallen said there should also be a stiff penalty for child labour.
The minister said President Muhammadu Buhari is the first in the history of Nigeria to bring the issue of gender-based violence to focus.
“For the first time in the history of Nigeria, we have a president who has brought the issues of gender based violence to the national focus,” NAN quoted her to have said.
“Nigerian women and children are very grateful to Mr President for spotlighting their issues as crucial to national development.
“I, therefore, advocate for both death sentence for rapists and stiff penalty for child labour offences and other dehumanising treatment against children.”
The minister said the cooking gas and tree planting project was inspired by Buhari and it aims at providing the “dividends of democracy” to rural women and girls.
“In line with this, the president directed that each of Nigeria’s 774 LGAs be supplied 1,000 cooking gas cylinders each. Adamawa state has been supplied with 21,000 Gas Cylinders at 1000 for each of the 21 Local Government Areas (LGAs),” she said.
“The development is a presidential gesture to be distributed to women in the rural communities, wards and down to the remotest villages.”
She said the president pledged to plant 25 million trees within one year during the 2019 session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
According to her, planting economic trees in the state will stimulate the environment, stem climate change and the effect of deforestation in the communities.