TEARS OF A WOMAN IN NORTH EASTERN NIGERIA: BY TIJANI MUKHTAR

tijani mukhtar
Jul 23, 2017 · 5 min read

A woman is believed by the society to be a blessing to her home and her family. It is often said that a woman is weaker in strength than the men, but stronger in heart and mind than the men. A woman is always in defence of her family and home. But in our society of today, women are subjected to various degrees of maltreatment which gives them so much pain that if care is not taken, she will have to live with it for her entire lifetime. These classes of man-made and societal injustices on the women folks can be rape, kidnapping, slavery, poverty, widowhood, early/force marriage, hunger and starvation, e.t.c. Thus, making her to be defenceless.

A woman is always believed to be under the care of a man, be it her father or husband, and lives according to their dictates. Her parents gives her hands out in marriage, either at an early or ripe age for marriage, after which she will be left at the mercy of her husband who will take over from where her parents stopped in feeding, giving her shelter, healthcare, education, security and protection, and the list goes on and on. But that does not guaranty her stability, as she may be faced with various level of injustice by the husband, to an extent that when she demands for an explanation to such unjust acts, she might end up with a divorce certificate, and when that happens, the woman bears most of the pain that accompanies it.

According to Amnesty international report, women are globally the number one recipients of human brutality. With the advent of Boko Haram in the North Eastern part of Nigeria, the basic problems and injustices that are hitherto been faced by women from their parents, husband or the society is now been magnified by what the insurgents are dishing out to them in the name of religion, and as such they are left at the mercy of the insurgents, which leaves them with no choice other than to accept whatever the insurgents and the society gifted them.

Boko Haram has exacted heavy toll on the lives of women and children. Women had faced a lot of life threatening experiences. Reports has shown that Women are been subjected to a lot of hardships by the Boko Haram Members ranging from hunger and starvation, HIV/AIDS, forced/under aged marriages, slavery, maternal mortality, suicide making, drug abuse, forceful conversion to Islam, slaughtering as a result of failed attempt to escape in the hands of Boko Haram e.t.c. They abducted and enslaved women to the extent that they are now been afraid of stigmatization by their immediate community, most of whom fear that they will be rejected within their families and locality.

The practices carried out by Boko Haram are barbaric and against Islamic teachings in its application, and as such the claim that they are trying to establish an Islamic caliphate by eliminating western education is false and baseless. One will always be emotional when listening to the tales and narrations of women liberated from the hands of Boko Haram. Aisha Umar a woman freed from Boko Haram’s captivity was quoted to have said: “ when the insurgents attacked our village, my parents were killed, I was abducted from our town and taken away by the insurgents, which made me to live with them for about three (3) years, this made me to pass through a lot of experiences like forced marriage, hunger and starvation, slavery etc. and later on gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, and I now live at an IDPs Camp in Maiduguri”.

Aisha Umar with her two Children at Bakassi IDPs Camp, Maiduguri, Borno State, Nigeria

The question to be asked now is ‘who will take care of Aisha’s responsibility and that of her two children? The government might help her at the initial stage, but to some extent it won’t be enough, as the likes of Aisha are out there in their millions with similar cases and problems. It is pitiful to know that most of them find it difficult to feed themselves and their Children. According to a UN report in 2015, about 80% of IDPs leave within host communities, and Women faced by these problems living within the communities resort to street begging, and even those living in the IDPs Camps sneak out to do so, this has become a common sight in the streets of Maiduguri. At the end, nobody bothers to ask if their anti-social outing was successful or not, as such they might end up going to bed with empty bellies. Also, we all should know that allowing the likes of Aisha to suffer with her children, we are possibly repeating a build up to violence, which we are now been faced with, as these children can grow up in a disadvantaged life. To these children, it is engraved in their minds that, the society is full of injustices and neglects, so they are already aggrieved, and are potential recruits to anyone that wants to cause violence, as such, they can easily partake in any act of violence, because they feel they have nothing to lose due to lack of moral upbringing and education.

An appeal should be made to the good citizens of this country and the north eastern Nigeria in particular to help in feeding an IDP or taking care of an internally displaced women and her children. By doing so, we are eradicating the proliferation of street begging, prostitution, malnourishment, maternal mortality, poverty, hunger and starvation as well as lack of shelter. The best part of it all is that, our women will have the hope and believe that the society is always there for them in times of hardship, mothers will once again have the love of their children, they will be proud to answer to the call of their children in public or private. If we all can stand up and pledge to feed these IDPs, and cater for them no matter how little we can give, then our society will be a better place to live. At the end we can beat our chest and say that our government, men and the society are fair and just to the women. #NotAnotherNigerian Woman and her children should be ignored by the society. @Neieffellows are saying no to injustices against women. Let the campaign to #Feed&Cater for IDPs start now.

By Tijani Mukhtar, a fellow of the North East Intellectual Entrepreneurship Fellowship (NEIEF) a youth led programme that is focusing on Countering Violent Extremism in the North East and Nigeria atlarge. #NotAnotherNigerian

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