Uniting against Culture of Girl-child Enslavement

Recently, some Ogoni women in Rivers State met under Lokiaka Community Development Centre to call for an end to the culture of enslavement of the girl-child in Ogoniland. Blessing Ibunge writes

In November 2020, when the Rivers State Governor, Mr. Nyesom Wike signed the bill on Violence Against Persons (Prohibitions) (VAPP) into Law, there was joy in the state as persons who felt dehumanised by their culture and tradition found a new hope to live again.

Just like Rivers, in 2015, the National Assembly passed the violence Against persons prohibition Bill into Law.

The VAPP Act is to eliminate violence in private and public life; prohibit all forms of violence, including physical, sexual, psychological, domestic, harmful traditional practices; discrimination against persons and to provide maximum protection and effective remedies for victims and punishment of offenders.

Though the VAPP is now made law, it seems many are still far from the knowledge of the law as a tool to defend their rights. The law was made not just for women but for persons whom injustice were meted on them by the enforcement of harsh cultural practices.

Also, as a way to create a larger awareness on this law was the 16 Days of Activism in commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and Girls.

During this period, voices campaigned for the rights of the female child in the society. There was clamour for equal treatment on both male and female children in the family. Many who were bold to speak up, lamented the consequences of their traditions on them as women, both as a child and married woman.

Still on the women and girls rights, the State Deputy Governor, Dr. Ipalibo Banigo had recently, called on all well-meaning citizens, especially the male folks to join the campaign to end violence against women and girls.

Dr. Banigo noted that violence against women and girls increase in the society, adding that sometimes women are also culpable when it comes to violence against fellow women.

The deputy governor stated that the leadership of Governor Wike takes the security and wellbeing of women as top priority with a zero tolerance for violence against women.

However, as women are publicly sharing their experiences, women from the Ogoni extraction in Rivers State, Niger Delta region have decried what they described as harsh and inhumane traditional practices against them by the male folks of their communities.

Some of the women who spoke with THISDAY at a conference targeted at increasing Women Access to Justice, an Overview of Existing Obnoxious Customs and Laws, as organised by Lokiaka Community Development Centre, in Wiiyaakara, Khana LGA, lamented the harmful practices in their various communities in Ogoniland.

The practices according to the women, are mainly against them (female) but in favour of the males in their communities, who also intimidate them using the tradition.

Numene Nwikpo, a female native of Wiiyaakara in Khana Local Government Area, said the most painful challenge they are facing in their community, is women not allowed to air their opinion in the midst of men, especially on issues that affects the generality of the community.

Nwikpo explained “In our community widows are still forced to carry their hair uncombed for years as part of respect for her late husband and depending on the year the community gives her freedom to shave it out.

“In Ogoni as a whole, community people are beginning to fight it and it is not strong again except the family insists. To shave the widow’s hair, it will undergo some rituals”.

She called on the state government to come to their aid and save them from the unfavourable tradition, adding that “Lokiaka is always sensitising us but the community should be enlightened on the consequences involved in such harmful act”.

On her part, Mrs Charity Nwiido, from Luawe community, regretted that in this century, young girls whose husbands died early, are not allowed to willingly remarry.

She decried her culture where the first daughter is ordered not to marry but stay back and reproduce children for her father’s house.

Nwiido lamented “In my Luawe community, when a young girl marries and unfortunately loses her husband to death, the inlaws will not allow her to remarry. If her husband was handy, the inlaws will take everything from her and sometimes force her to be reproducing children through any of the late husband’s brothers.

“If you are the first daughter in some homes now they will not allow you to marry. And if you insist, either the woman will birth children and her children dies or she will die.

“Another challenge is that if you are single, and you struggled without support from any members of your family and when you are ready to marry, if same brothers that refused to support you are not there, you will not be given out for marriage.

“In this part of the world, there is problem amongst women. They betray one another and problem arises everyday. I thank Lokiaka for bringing us together but if such sensitisation should be taken to remote villages, it will enlighten our women on their rights according to the law.”

Mrs Martha Egbe, a native of Eleme, said in her community “a woman that lost her husband does not benefit from the sharing of family farms. If they are sharing money they will not remember her and her children and these actions are very harsh on women.

“If a woman marries once, has a divorce and returns back to her father’s house, she will not benefit from the family inheritance, which is also unjust”.

She advised that “Both women and men should be treated fairly. Even though they don’t want to apportion her equal as man, she should be regarded and be allowed to have some landed benefits from her family”.

For the Executive Director of Lokiaka and a native of Ogoni, Martha Agbani, “Ogoni women have a lot of obnoxious cultural practices that are affecting their existence and on that note we thought it wise to bring in experts, those who understands what laws are to talk to these women, advise them, and consciencetise them on how they can actually address or seek for redress on most of these violations they face from their homes and society.

“We are here today as Ogoni people to look inwardly at issues that affect us: what are those gender violence that Ogoni women face and so we have over 200 women representatives in the hall from all the Ogoni kingdom who have come to participate in this event.

“We believe that after this section, women will know all the laws they have been violating all these while around them and know how to seek redress and have a new lease of life and more of their human dignity being restored.

“Ogoni women have mentioned the harmful traditional practices they have been having: issues around divorce, bigamy, issues that had to do with the widowhood practices where they loose their husbands and they are not allowed to remarry, where they loose their husbands and they are asked to pass through a very hard condition just to keep the memory of their husbands alive.

“Women are denied their rights because they are now widows. They cover the pains because they have the fear that if they say it, the custom will speak against them.”

Agbani assured that the group will compile the customary laws, especially the obnoxious ones and use it as advocacy to engage the traditional rulers.

A legal practitioner in the state, Stephanie Ekpebulu, while sensitising the Ogoni women on the extant laws, noted that if the vulnerable women can make use of the laws, it will reduce and possibly eliminate those harmful laws against them.

Ekpebulu, who is with Working for Family Stability Initiative (WOFASI) said they are in collaboration with Lokiaka to equip the Ogoni women with the right knowledge so that they can stand up for themselves when their rights are about to be trampled upon.

She stressed “We read out the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) law to them. The law was just passed in Rivers State on November 11, 2020. We just hope they are going to speak up against these obnoxious practices because since 2003, this harmful dehumanisation practices have been abolished in the law.

“Ignorance of the law has made some persons sit by and watch their rights being trampled upon. But with what they have learnt today, I believe that they are now aware of these laws. We have also suggested to the convener, Agbani, that she should look for a way to ensure that these traditional rulers too are aware that these practices have been abolished so that when these things are about to metted out on the women, they can speak for them”.

Meanwhile, a traditional ruler in Ogoniland who spoke with THISDAY on the culture of the area, said some of their traditions would be reviewed soon.

The Monarch, who is the traditional ruler of Kegbara Dere (K-Dere) in Gokana LGA, Chief Donald Kpegemona Gberesuu explained that the issue of not allowing the first daughter to remarry was for replacement in the situation where there is no male child to sustain the family.

Gberesuu explained “The issue of the first daughter not being married is not a general thing. It is only applied on families where there are no male children and for purpose of keeping the family lineage. But if she so wishes to marry, then she can just have a child or she will marry another woman as a replacement so that someone will be there in order to take care of the property of the family.

“Some of these cultures will be reviewed and I am of the opinion that this culture ought to be reviewed. We look at one or two things to add to it so that the women, girl child will also have the equal right that the male child has.

“This barbing of hair is almost part of our culture here but the idea asking a married woman not to touch her hair is just for a period of months. It is an indication to show that this woman is actually mourning. To keep the hair as a way to show respect to the late husband. But it is not barbaric. The idea is asking her to mourn her husband.

“The idea of remarrying is not our culture. This is because if a woman married and begets children and then within that period someone comes to marry her, what will now happen to those children? So it’s based on that, they said she is the keeper of the home. If the husband is late, she should be able to raise these children so that they will not go astray and join cultism and other social vices in our society”, the monarch explained.

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Ignorance of the law has made some persons sit by and watch their rights being trampled upon. But with what they have learnt today, I believe that they are now aware of these laws