‘People should support those who suffer and survive violence’

The story of a 32-year-old housewife, Asma’u Umar who got severely burnt while cooking was carried in the Daily Trust about two months ago. It was reported that she became facially disfigured as a result of the burns only for her husband to divorce her while receiving treatment. As someone who has been a women’s […]

The story of a 32-year-old housewife, Asma’u Umar who got severely burnt while cooking was carried in the Daily Trust about two months ago. It was reported that she became facially disfigured as a result of the burns only for her husband to divorce her while receiving treatment. As someone who has been a women’s rights activist over the years, what is your reaction to this, and what has WRAPA done concerning the case?
My reaction is first of all to lament and ask for the intervention of God in this kind of situation. Because on daily basis women go through all kind of things, and they do so under the umbrella of matrimony. As such a lot of them just take it. There are also instances where things are really bad but nobody wants to talk about it.
 We are not happy with the development but we are also happy that people are beginning to have a zero tolerance against this kind of incidence.
We are almost all the time on a clarion call to people that no form of violence is acceptable especially in a domestic setting, where it is supposed to be enveloped in love, compassion, and where people are supposed to be each other’s keeper.
So any form of violence that emanates from the domestic setting is unfortunate, unwanted and undesirable.
On what we have done, on December 16th Kaduna WRAPA Coordinator , Mallam Abbas Shehu and Hajiya Nafisa Bello, Ex. Director Widows of Nigeria (WON) a partner organization visited Malama Asma’u Umar, survivor of the domestic fire accident at Shika, Zaria. She narrated her story and the sequence of events to us.
WRAPA was not able to visit Bele to see her former husband and hear his own side of the story. This was because it was late to travel as well as the fact that he is in a mobile job and Asma’u does not have his current contact number. We hope to make the trip again.
WRAPA has shared contact numbers with her. We are also working to obtain the telephone numbers of the two doctors treating her for further guidance on the treatment plan. Her telephone numbers are 09090920526 and 08109831251. Her priority is her recovery, physical and psychological rehabilitation for which she is seeking support.
WRAPA remains committed to promoting the rights of women and defending their human dignity, based on which we have started a fund raising campaign to support Asma’u treatment. The support to be extended to Asma’u is within the organization’s mandate for humanitarian support in exceptional circumstances to indigent women and families.
How do you think the problem of gender based violence in the country can be addressed?
We have for a long time been saying three things need to happen. Firstly, we need to have a strong legal response to these things. Legal response here refers to a legal framework that is implemented judiciously not just paper law.
A legal framework that really recognizes the violations that all persons, especially women and children are going through;  and that is designed to give it commensurate punishment. So that people can at least be deterred. If we can’t stop it completely.
The second ambit is where we are looking at people themselves being sensitized that accountability will be held against them if they do things like that. That they also have a duty to protect the weak ones in their domains and support those who suffer and survive violence.
People ordinarily react by castigation especially when it comes to sexual violence where the women get derided and stigmatized because everybody ascribes the fault to them for being at the wrong place at the wrong time or wearing the wrong dress to the wrong place or whatever.
So we need that sensitization for people to understand that violence is unacceptable, people need to be conscious to raise their voice against it, and to support every effort to hold violators accountable.
Thirdly, we need to have an environment where society says no; it is unacceptable. We need to recall that excellent value system where everybody is accountable to everybody. Today we have arrived at a situation where everybody has their liberties and believe it should not be tampered with.
But in that regard we have lost some of those positive values of humanity; and that humanness is what is lacking in our relationships; that what doesn’t touch me doesn’t concern me.
Lets revert back to those kind of humane values where we are all keepers to our selves, where we place ourselves in the place of those who are violated and say if it were me, what would I do? What would I feel?
We need to stop this nonchalance and complacency that we have where we say ‘that it is not my business’ or looking on or the response institutions like the police , the judiciary and even some faith based platforms who say ‘sort it out these are secrets of the family’. Violence is nothing private; it is as public as it is private.
It happens in private places because people take latitude of being a father, husband, brother, landlord or a boss to violate others especially those vulnerable ones. We need that sensitization to say it is unacceptable, no platform should condone it and when it happens people should rise to the occasion to condemn it in all ramifications.
Can you briefly tell us how WRAPA has impacted on the life of women in the country so far?
WRAPA has since 1999 been out there working to do the things it set itself out to do.One is to raise consciousness to the rights of women and to also engender commitment for the protection of these rights. It is also to ensure that women have access to legal justice and that they are able to have legal redress when their rights are violated.
 We have also been working to ensure that we give voice to the voiceless. We empower women to speak out for themselves. We empower them to have some form of income through their community structures.
We also do a lot of work on legal reforms and we have a very robust media engagement which keeps highlighting the ills of society, and working with us to promote responses that are positive on all forms of violations on women and girls.
Your organization earlier this year won an award from the Mac-Arthur Foundation. Can you elaborate on it?
The award is called the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions. It is given to organizations that are recognized for impacting on the lives of people in their countries, communities or situations. We were recognised for the kind of work we have been doing which impacts on the lives of a minimum of 15 women per day in all parts of Nigeria.
We have also been recognized for using innovative and groundbreaking methodologies and approach. For instance, when the story of Asma’u  Umar was reported in the media, we decided not to comment until we do two things.
First we will do a fact finding on it so that it will not just be a newspaper report we are responding to and secondly we will also extend the right to fair hearing to the husband. So our methodology has been such that it has helped us to access spaces that ordinarily right-based groups do not have the capacity to do.
We were also recognized for our innovation on working with men as well as institutions of faith and culture. Most importantly we have been recognized for our doggedness in working with institutions of government to ensure that there is a synergy between the demand and supply sides of governance.
Government is the pallbearer of all our rights because they have the constitutional mandate but working with government and working with its institutions has also helped to raise commitment and also raise response to these issues.
We are not doing as well as we would have wanted to do as an NGO, there is room for improvement. However, MacArthur Foundation felt we have done well and deserve to be supported so that we grow bigger and stronger to serve more Nigeria women. We were identified along with six other institutions around the world.
Is there any other thing you will like to say?
The media needs to be the friend of rights based groups. The media needs to be our ally – ‘paddy-paddy’ as we say in Nigeria because the extent to which we can reach out is limited. Even when we have newsletters and radio access, we are limited.
Sometimes we are left with the debate on whether we should pay so much for radio or television programmes or to commit the amount to supporting such women as this one that needs surgery or defend another in court. The cases we handle can be very expensive even as we have generous lawyers and chambers offering pro-bono services.
We are therefore left with the debate on pushing the money into legal aid or supporting humanitarian cause especially survivors of violence where 6o out of 100cases are violations of women who are helpless.
Women who go through this kind of violations in domestic settings are already down before their situation comes to us. They need support to pick the pieces of their lives; and that cost money. We want to see the media being able to open more avenues. WRAPA is grateful to the media because it wouldn’t have been doing what it has being doing without the wonderful partnership with the media.