State-sponsored Violence Against Women and Girls in Nigeria
A press release on the recent police raids, arrests, and assault on women and young ladies in night-clubs, bars and on the streets in Abuja, FCT.
Project Alert on Violence Against Women totally condemns recent reports on social media of raid on women and young girls in night clubs and bars in Abuja.
This practice came into light in 2014, when the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) – set up to keep the environment clean – decided that raiding women and girls walking on the streets at dark, or in clubs and bars, was part of the job.
On the instruction of Senator Bola Mohammed, the AEPB – including the police, attacked women and girls, “arresting” over 150 of them, calling them commercial sex workers.
Dorothy Njemanze, an actress and activist, and three others took this case before ECOWAS court sitting in Abuja, and in October 2017, a landmark judgment was given against AEPB and Nigeria.
In its judgment, the court pronounced that a woman outside at night doesn’t qualify her to be labeled a prostitute. The court held that the arrest of the plaintiffs was unlawful and violated the right to freedom of liberty, as the Defendant state had submitted no proof that these women were indeed prostitutes.
The court also found that branding the women prostitutes, constituted verbal abuse and violated their right to dignity, stating that the arrest violated their right to freedom from cruel, and degrading treatment.
It should be noted that Nigeria is the first country to be pronounced guilty by ECOWAS court of contravening the MAPUTO protocol.
Despite this, 2 weeks ago, a raid was carried out at Caramelo Night Club in Utako district of Abuja, on the pretext that there were nude dancers at the club. The members of the task force stormed the building, arresting all the females, nude and clothed alike.
Following the raid, the special task force carried out a couple more raids at Beer Barn and Ketchup over the weekend arresting mostly women who were at the said locations.
As stated by Dorothy Njemanze, “It is indeed sad that while strategizing to engage Nigeria to honour the ECOWAS court judgment, the state, and its agencies, intensified their assaults against women and girls in Abuja especially. In February 2018, my intervention stopped them from abducting a six-month pregnant woman. My colleagues with me confessed it was the scariest situation they’d experienced.”
This is state-sponsored gender-based violence against women and girls and must not be condoned. If the police claim it is after commercial sexual workers, why weren’t the men, who patronize them, arrested as well? The Nigerian state should stop targeting women and girls. The hypocrisy and sexism must stop.
Enough is Enough.
Josephine Effah-Chukwuma
Executive Director
Project Alert
