The Centre for Accountability and Public Participation has bemoaned the disturbing current tendency of sexualizing youngsters and objectifying women in skits, Entrepreneurng report.
The Civil Society Organization highlighted that skits with such deplorable and damaging narratives spread detrimental stereotypes that justify the exploitation of helpless people. Additionally, it contributes to the nation’s culture of violence, bigotry, and misogyny.
In a statement written by Zikora Ibeh, the policy and research officer for CAPPA, the CSO expressed its deep concern over the many cases in which such comedic movies also take advantage of children’s naivety for amusement.
It referred to the incident that happened on April 9 when two Instagram comedians shared a now-deleted skit showing a two-year-old daughter who was the target of an inappropriate sexual scenario and was assaulted by a male adult who was portrayed as the landlord in the video.
The same thing happened on April 4, when a well-known Facebook page posted a video of a scared and nude hotel secretary pleading with the man filming her to stop. It was discovered that the man had at first engaged the woman in a consensual relationship, but that as soon as she took off her clothes in the room with him, he revealed that the whole thing was a joke and that a third party was filming.
He then posted the video online while ranting about her morals and those of Nigerian women in general. They added that these are only a small sample of the thousands of identical movies that are uploaded daily in Nigeria.
“To do this, CAPPA emphasized that “Nigerians must urgently confront the glaring issues they promote” and that “these comedy skits have crossed the line of human decency and morality.”
The dehumanization of young ladies and sexualization of kids in the films are particularly upsetting as rude remarks about their appearance, dress, and behavior are made. According to CAPPA, this pattern devalues and potentially normalizes the problem of child exploitation and the infringement of people’s rights to dignity.
The organization also noted that these performances frequently stigmatize and dehumanize sex workers, feeding the false narrative that they lack basic human rights and respect.
Therefore, “the entertainment industry contributes to their vulnerability and exploitation by portraying them as legitimate targets for scorn and abuse. Along with these problems, the coarse humor and disparaging language used in these plays denigrate women and promote toxic masculinity, ultimately fostering a culture of violence against and sexual harassment of women and girls.
They urged skit writers to reevaluate their plots, saying that by stopping the creation and distribution of material that objectifies, dehumanizes, or sexualizes women and children and is committed to humor that is devoid of prejudice and exploitation, we may bring about a constructive change.
They said that to truly take into account and include women’s, children’s, gender rights advocates, and other stakeholders’ opinions and experiences in the creative process, continual communication and collaboration with these groups were necessary.
Conclusion
They advised the Nigerian comedy business to make an effort to create educational programs that increase awareness of the detrimental effects of destructive comedic content and aggressively promote equity, respect, and empathy both inside the industry and outside of it.
Source: punch
