She made this known during a United Nations virtual forum on sexual and gender-based violence on Wednesday.
Adichie cited the recent cases in Nigeria,she decried the pervasiveness of rape and other forms of sexual assault on women and girls in society. She said;
“I think that there is an epidemic of male entitlement towards female bodies. It’s a global epidemic, and it’s something we need to address.
“What I have noticed in reactions to these horrific cases is that there is a language around rape and sexual assault on women that we really need to think and talk about.
“We live in a culture that diminishes women, and so both men and women participate in that culture’’.
She also said that there had been so many disappointing views from Nigerians asking questions like: ‘what was the girl wearing when she was raped?. She added;
“What language do we give girls to talk about their bodies? What language do we give boys to talk about what girls and women represent in our societies?
“When I was growing up, I don’t think I had the language to talk about my experience had I been a victim of sexual assault.
“The word for vagina in my language, Igbo, is loaded with shame and if you are a good girl you are not supposed to know that word,’’ she said.
“So, it matters, how we teach girls to talk about these things because if they don’t have the language they don’t feel equipped to talk about what is happening to them.’’
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