That Human Rights Report: The girls deserve a life too

The recent report by the Human Rights Watch of the rape and exploitation of the girls and women in seven Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Maiduguri, Borno State of North-Eastern Nigeria is, to say the least, heartbreaking and tragic. It erodes the little credibility we have gained as a nation from the successes so […]

The recent report by the Human Rights Watch of the rape and exploitation of the girls and women in seven Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Maiduguri, Borno State of North-Eastern Nigeria is, to say the least, heartbreaking and tragic. It erodes the little credibility we have gained as a nation from the successes so far recorded in the war against Boko Haram insurgency. For the unfortunate women and girls, some of them minors, it is a case of ‘from frying pan to fire.’
The human rights group reports that as at July this year, there were 43 recorded cases of rape and sexual exploitation of girls and women in the IDP camps in Maiduguri by government security personnel and care givers.  These were displaced persons from the Boko Haram attacks in the Borno towns and villages of “Abadam, Bama, Baga, Damasak, Dikwa, Gamboru Ngala, Gwoza, Kukawa, and Walassa.”
According to the report, published on the group’s website on October 31: “Government officials and other authorities in Nigeria have raped and sexually exploited women and girls displaced by the conflict with Boko Haram. The government is not doing enough to protect displaced women and girls and ensure that they have access to basic rights and services or to sanction the abusers, who include camp leaders, vigilante groups, policemen, and soldiers.”
The report says that four of the victims were drugged and raped, while the rest were either coerced or sweet-talked into sex with a false promise of marriage and financial assistance. Those that got pregnant from the act, like the 17 year-old girl who was impregnated by a policeman, were threatened to keep their mouth shut and suffer the shame alone or else their lives would be snuffed out. These ladies are left without any counseling – to overcome the psychological trauma and stigma from the rape – or healthcare. The report reveals a spike in cases of HIV in the camps from 200 in 2014 to 500 in 2016, with many unreported cases as the carriers are either afraid or ashamed to come forward for tests.
A pathetic account – all the accounts are indeed pathetic – by a 16-year old girl who lost her parents to Boko Haram attack in Baga in Borno State tells of how she was drugged and raped by a member of the Vigilante Group in charge of distributing food in the camp. After asking her for sex and repeatedly getting the answer that she was too young and still a virgin, he lured her into his room, drugged and raped her. The rape resulted in a pregnancy.
The report reveals that these abuses have not happened only in Maiduguri.  Quoting from the findings of the NOI Polls, a Nigerian research organisation, the report discloses that by July 2016, “66 percent of 400 displaced people in Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe states said that camp officials sexually abuse the displaced women and girls.”
Not long ago, we read of how officials diverted the food items sent as relief materials to these camps to their homes; and how money appropriated for the camps were embezzled. I am sure that these acts have not ceased.
This leads me to wonder what kind of Homo sapiens species we are in this part of the world. Who in his right senses would want to benefit from the misfortune of these unfortunate brothers and sisters of ours?  Do the people who perpetrate these evil acts not realise that they are only bringing doom to themselves and their descendants, even those yet unborn? The worst crime one can commit is that against one who desperately depends on your mercy. God surely fights for such people.
The only consolatory fallout from this damaging report is the news that the president, Muhammadu Buhari, “worried and shocked by the report,” has ordered an immediate investigation into the findings. This should rank as the fastest positive reaction of any Nigerian government in recent memory to a report critical to the country’s official handling of matters. In the past, we have seen governments either deny the veracity of such a report or lampoon the reporters as ‘enemies of the country.’
While the investigation is going on, the government should do something to protect the sanctity of life – the much that is left of it – of these unfortunate victims. Even so, some of these displaced persons are now orphans with no one to care for them. Government must restore hope to them and provide them with the most basic of human rights as guaranteed by the Nigerian Constitution – the Right to Life (section 33 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution).
It was heartwarming to watch on national TV how the 21 released Boko Haram girls suddenly transformed from dirty and ill-fed refugees at the time of their release to beautiful and well-kept damsels the day they met with the president. It was also mind-lifting to hear the president promise the girls “comprehensive medical, nutritional and psychological care and support,’ and to tell the girls that the Federal Government would henceforth assume “the responsibility for their personal, educational and professional goals and ambitions in life.”
To demonstrate that these were not merely to score political points, these 43 women and girls, and many such others in other camps, deserve no less treatment. Government should work with the Rights Groups to identify these victims and provide them with much needed comprehensive medical, nutritional and psychological care and support. That 16-year old raped and abandoned mum who now contemplates suicide “to join her dead mother’’ and her young innocent baby for whom she has “no food or love” should equally be given the opportunity to actualize their personal, educational and professional aspirations.
Henry Onukwuba, a Senior Fellow at Lagos Business School, wrote this piece from Lagos.