There is much silence around gendered violence in Nigeria particularly in the Niger Delta region. Whilst the Nigerian government, military and militants act out various layers of theatre around amnesty, bunkering and continued militarisation, women continue to face daily violence. No one knows the numbers of women and girls raped and sexually assaulted over the past 15 years of military occupation. Even those rapes which have been filmed on camera such as in Choba in 1999 and in Ogoniland which women have spoken of, no one has ever been arrested let alone brought to trial. So it comes as no surprise that a young woman , Grace Ushang, serving in the Youth Corps in Maiduguri was raped and murdered and nothing has been done and doubtful anything will be done. On the contrary the response from the government is that they cannot protect women in the NYS so they will have to do so themselves!
The cavalier brutality of this morbid tale of criminal vigilante action is compounded by the official response to it. The director-general of the NYSC reportedly travelled to Maiduguri ostensibly to discuss this crime with the state’s law enforcement authorities. Rather than denounce this for the crime that it is and reassure our young graduates on national service that their wellbeing preoccupies the highest levels of decision-making, the director-general merely advised youth corpers to ‘take their personal security seriously because whatever we provided is not enough. They must learn to be security-conscious.’ Pray, how?
Writing in Pambazuka News, Asma’u Joda and Iheoma Obibi make the connection between violence against women and the proposed law which if passed will dictates dress code in Nigeria.
The bill proposes to grant intolerably dangerous powers of arrest and invasion of the most intimate privacies of the woman’s body imaginable to both police officers and ordinary citizens to undertake vigilante action against women they merely perceive to be ‘indecently dressed’.
Senator Ekaette’s bill covers any female above 14 years wearing a dress that exposes ‘her breast, laps, belly and waist … and any part of her body from two inches below her shoulders downwards to the knee’ (such as the much-admired Fulani milk maid). Also liable to become a criminal if this bill were to become law is any person dressed in ‘transparent’ fabric (such as lace) as well as men who expose any part of their bodies between the waist and the knee (such as men relieving themselves by the roadside). All these people and more would presumably attract arrest from zealous policemen. If this bill becomes law, there will not be enough prisons or mortuaries in Nigeria for its victims. It will licence vigilante violence against women, leading to fatalities like the fate that befell Grace Ushang.
The proposed Bill is part of a movement in the country towards increased Christian and Islamic fundamentalism which is invasive in all aspects of behaviour in both the public and private spheres and which impacts particularly on women and girls. In this environment, security forces as well as religious leaders and zealots will have the authority to hand out immediate punishment for offenses of “indecency” such as with Grace Ushang who dared to wear the NYS uniform of khaki shirt and trousers – which is deemed as male dress. Any woman over the age of 14 found wearing jeans, showing her shoulders or ams, legs etc would be criminalised. We have a president who was never elected, a war involving 20 million people, no electricity or water and now rather than criminalise violence against women we have a proposed law which will criminalise women by virtue of how they dress and leave them vulnerable to even more violence.
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There is much silence around gendered violence in Nigeria particularly in the Niger Delta region. Whilst the Nigerian government, military and militants act out various layers of theatre around amnesty, bunkering and continued militarisation, women continue to face daily violence. No one knows the numbers of women and girls raped and sexually assaulted over the past 15 years of military occupation. Even those rapes which have been filmed on camera such as in Choba in 1999 and in Ogoniland which women have spoken of, no one has ever been arrested let alone brought to trial. So it comes as no surprise that a young woman , Grace Ushang, serving in the Youth Corps in Maiduguri was raped and murdered and nothing has been done and doubtful anything will be done. On the contrary the response from the government is that they cannot protect women in the NYS so they will have to do so themselves!
The cavalier brutality of this morbid tale of criminal vigilante action is compounded by the official response to it. The director-general of the NYSC reportedly travelled to Maiduguri ostensibly to discuss this crime with the state’s law enforcement authorities. Rather than denounce this for the crime that it is and reassure our young graduates on national service that their wellbeing preoccupies the highest levels of decision-making, the director-general merely advised youth corpers to 'take their personal security seriously because whatever we provided is not enough. They must learn to be security-conscious.' Pray, how?
Writing in Pambazuka News, Asma’u Joda and Iheoma Obibi make the connection between violence against women and the proposed law which if passed will dictates dress code in Nigeria.
The bill proposes to grant intolerably dangerous powers of arrest and invasion of the most intimate privacies of the woman’s body imaginable to both police officers and ordinary citizens to undertake vigilante action against women they merely perceive to be 'indecently dressed'.
Senator Ekaette’s bill covers any female above 14 years wearing a dress that exposes 'her breast, laps, belly and waist … and any part of her body from two inches below her shoulders downwards to the knee' (such as the much-admired Fulani milk maid). Also liable to become a criminal if this bill were to become law is any person dressed in 'transparent' fabric (such as lace) as well as men who expose any part of their bodies between the waist and the knee (such as men relieving themselves by the roadside). All these people and more would presumably attract arrest from zealous policemen. If this bill becomes law, there will not be enough prisons or mortuaries in Nigeria for its victims. It will licence vigilante violence against women, leading to fatalities like the fate that befell Grace Ushang.
The proposed Bill is part of a movement in the country towards increased Christian and Islamic fundamentalism which is invasive in all aspects of behaviour in both the public and private spheres and which impacts particularly on women and girls. In this environment, security forces as well as religious leaders and zealots will have the authority to hand out immediate punishment for offenses of "indecency" such as with Grace Ushang who dared to wear the NYS uniform of khaki shirt and trousers - which is deemed as male dress. Any woman over the age of 14 found wearing jeans, showing her shoulders or ams, legs etc would be criminalised. We have a president who was never elected, a war involving 20 million people, no electricity or water and now rather than criminalise violence against women we have a proposed law which will criminalise women by virtue of how they dress and leave them vulnerable to even more violence.
Tagged as:
Africa ,
Gender Violence,
Maiduguri,
Niger Delta,
Nigeria,
violence against women
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The Ushang tradegy is case in point of how Senator Ekaette’s bill will definitely work towards the detriment of women in Nigeria. In fact, the mere consideration of her bill, in my opinion, provides some fuel to the fire of vigilante violence against women in Nigeria.
Beyond this, the relative silence in this case is particularly disturbing. It is hardly getting the type of publicity that the Uzoma Okere case garnered. If the federal government cannot protect women serve their NYSC terms in some states who practice extreme forms of fundamentalism or adhere to antiquated shari’a laws, it should reconsider the program. The vast majority of Nigerians cannot afford extra protections that the NYSC director calls for, neither can they attract interest in human rights abuses to the degree of Okere, who happened to be the daughter of an army official. The continued silence on the Ushang case allows for such atrocities to continue and strengthens the indecent dressing bill initiative.
.-= Nneoma´s last blog ..feeling a bit standtall-ish… =-.
Pyoowata @ The fact that the NYS distance themselves from the responsibility of ensuring women members are protected is a damning indictment on the government and men in general. If they cannot protect women then they should not send them to areas where their presence will be a security risk as in this case. Women should refuse to serve in the states with Sharia law – if it was my daughter I would advise her not to go and we fight it in court if necessary.
What this story tells me is that rape and violence against women as a whole remains a secondary issues across Nigeria. Forcing women to dress in a certain way is itself a form of violence as it comes with threat of punishment if one transgresses. Thank goodness the NYC uniform for women was not changed – this is not the sort of protection I envisaged as you say rightly it would fail to deal with the underlying issue which is the status of women in Nigerian society and what men feel they are entitled to do to women. I dont know where the rape took place but if it was on campus why were these men free to come and go but ultimately the protection lies in the attidude towards the crime by the NYC authorities and local police to seek out the rapists and murderers. By claiming they cannot protect women they are saying they cannot be bothered to pursue the perpetrators of this crime.
Entitlement to touch, to harass, to insist on sex in exchange for jobs, education and so on – rape is the extreme on a spectrum of sexual harassment which is not outside society’s acceptable mores. Sexual abuse is committed because men feel they are entitled to women’s bodies and they can get away with it for one thing by claiming she “asked for it” by the way she did this or that. The same can be said for domestic violence – put up and shut up. Society’s response to the raped woman is to stigmatise her rather than the rapist.