In this report, ENE OSHABA writes about the resilience of a survivor of insurgents’ attacks and the need for women’s involvement in peace and security deliberations.
Kuchingoro IDPs camp
Walking around the camp busy while ensuring that all three outreach programmes holding on the same day and time were in order is Hannatu Andrew; the Women Coordinator and Teacher at the Kuchingoro Internally Displaced People’s (IDPs) camp located beside the high brow Games Village in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
There were three different organizations at the camp that day. While two of them were on a medical outreach, the third organized an empowerment and sensitization programme on skills acquisition and small business ownership in which they supported the women with cash to start or continue a trade in order to cater for themselves and families.
Hannatu Andrew was fully involved in the three programmes, ensuring that all at the camp benefited, while she encouraged all parents to bring their children out for the check up and treatment, she was also one of the facilitators at the other programme basically meant for the women. She ensured that all were seated and paid attention as those who did not were always sanctioned and deprived of any interventions brought to them to enable them behave themselves next time.
“Coordinating people is not easy, educated women behave differently from the uneducated ones and so I just devised a means, the ones who do not respect the leaders we ensure that whenever any empowerment comes they don’t get it and so they listen and become respectful,” she said.
The displaced
Sometime on December 17, 2014, Hannatu and many other residents of Ngoshe in Gwoza local government area of Borno state were displaced following attacks from the Boko Haram insurgents and life never remained the same. They had to run from their community to neighboring Cameroun and then back to Nigeria since they were not also safe there.
She recalled how the crises began unexpectedly in her community and took everyone by surprise as it also robbed them of their livelihood, and made them live in fear in their own villages. Their husbands were being killed, and this made them run into the mountains for safety since they can’t repel the attacks, the women were left alone with the children and they also took food to their husbands in hiding.
She said, “When crises started we were in the village. We were in the market when we started hearing gunshots and one person was killed, a month later we were in church when we heard gunshots again and three people got killed, that was November 2013.
“The terrorists saw that our men were still surviving and they brought more of their members and with more weapons like machine guns and followed us to the mountains and said because we were protecting our men they started kidnapping women and children and that was how we the women also started running for our lives. We ran to neighboring Cameroun on foot with our children.
“We got to Cameroon after three days and the terrorists came after us, shot a woman breastfeeding her two months child this scared us a lot because they weren’t killing women before only the men, we had no choice but to run from one place to another in Cameroun then decided to come back to Nigeria.
“myself and other women from my village stayed in Cameroon for one month and two weeks then we started hearing of job opportunities in Abuja, we decided to relocate to Abuja since we are not safe in our hometowns and have lost our means of livelihood.”
Arriving in Abuja
Hannatu continued to narrate her ordeal, saying that she arrived in Abuja safe and excited. She then proceeded to meet her friend, Lami, with all hope of starting a better life but that was the beginning of another plight, the camp was deserted of people because it was a new one then and everywhere was bushy.
“My friend, Lami, who told me about the camp has just one tent I lived with her for about one month before I cleared an area and build my own tent but I always cried then because the place was so dirty, no water but a small stream where we had our bath, fetch to drink, wash and do everything. No school for our children, no hospital around we can’t even afford a hospital and the Government doesn’t recognize this camp so we kept suffering and hoping on God to bring us help.
Reminiscing about life in Ngoshe she said, “I was living comfortably as a teacher, farmer, business woman; I cultivate beans, yams, bennseed and hoard them until when it’s scarce I sell and make profits. I also fed my family from this and we enjoyed living a humble community life. We could afford our needs because of my multiple streams of income, I worked as a teacher in a nursery and primary school established in our community by the German government and I am well respected in my community. The school had nine teachers and 300 children, so we were comfortable,”she said.
Building resilience
Hannatu narrated how some IDPs died because there was no access to hospital at the camp. According to her, one particular pregnant woman died right before them while she was giving birth inside the camp because she couldn’t afford hospital. This spurred the women to stop lamenting they formed a cooperative and registered it under government so that they could help themselves. She is the secretary of that cooperative.
“….and so we formed a group to discuss our issues, but when the men saw that they cannot cheat us any longer they destroyed that group and that is why we decided to register a cooperative which has been very helpful to us.
“When any woman is pregnant and wants to give birth, we rally around her to get a vehicle to take her to the hospital and source funds for the hospital bill.
“The old among us too with nobody to take care of them we help with washing for them and give them food. We also help families in need with small loans and encourage them to farm or do petty trade to put food on their tables; we had contributed money for a member whose house was gutted with fire to enable them get a few things, we also reconcile broken homes, visit each other within the camp to ensure peace and unity. This is the benefit of the cooperative to us.”
Addressing root cause
Though the boko haram terrorists that displaced Hannatu and others from their community regard western education as sin, just as their names suggests “Western education is sin” the women still believes that it is very important and that is why they do all within their means to ensure their kids are in school.
“The major factor that brought us to this camp is insecurity, coupled with the fact that most of us are illiterates. So, we decided to build a school inside this camp and we have just two teachers and I who have been volunteering to teach these over 200 children for over two years now without pay.
“I personally called two of my friends to volunteer as teachers here because we don’t want our children to suffer what we have suffered in life and all this is because of illiteracy. We don’t want our children to join bad boys because it is only illiteracy that makes people do that and that’s why school is important,” she stressed.
Expectations
Hannatu and many other indigent women at the camp expressed the hope of interventions from the government and well meaning Nigerians. They had written down names severally as directed to by government officials promising to secure grants and other interventions from the government but that is seeming like a mirage now because they are yet to get any such assistance.
“The government always asks us to write our names and BVN so that they can empower us to start business and help ourselves, but for over 10 different times we have written our names and submitted to it. But we never got any financial assistance. We are still hopeful and appealing to the government to empower our men and youth so that they can take care of family and there will be peace in the homes and in the society.
“Some of our youths are graduates and NCE holders but with no jobs, they only sit at home and play cards and they eventually join bad gang, robbery and the young girls go into prostitution and some of our men are still marrying new wives when they cannot take care of the one at home.
“I’m tired of living here; we want government to secure our place so that we can go back home, if government build houses, school, hospital, provide security we can go back because there is no place like home we are hearing that government is empowering ex Boko Haram terrorists what about those of us that loose out livelihood, families and are still here suffering with our children?
“We don’t have shelter, health care and education, had it been we did not create education for our children, the government is just looking at us like that.
We don’t have a place here but most of us are farmers, government should provide lands for us in Nasarawa state since that place is safe or should provide security so that we can go back to our community. These are our prayers.”
Importance of WPS
The challenges faced by women such as Hannatu Andrew and many others are the reasons the United Nations advocates women’s Inclusion in peace and security processes through the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 which many countries including Nigeria is signatory to.
According to the Minister of Women Affairs, Dame Pauline Tallen, the UNSCR 1325 was unanimously passed by the Security Council on the 31st of October, 2000 as the first of several Resolutions on “Women, Peace and Security” (WPS).
She explained that the “Resolution, with its four pillars of prevention, participation, protection and peace-building and recovery, has become the focal point for stimulating worldwide efforts to deal with the many challenges that women face in situations of conflict.”
“The National Action Plan (NAP) which acts as a key platform for countries to set priorities, coordinate action and track progress, was to prompt meaningful changes in behavior, policies and funding as well as provide civil society with a mechanism to hold the governments accountable and create space for the governments, multilateral institutions, and civil society to work together for greater impact.
“The question remains whether women have been well integrated at decision tables of security talks, it is also expected that by now, women in the security sector should be sharing their live experiences and contributing to a participatory process to advance gender balance and also to spotlight men who have supported them to climb to the peak of their careers in this area.”
Experts’ take
Gender equality experts are of the opinion that it would be more beneficial to the country if more women were allowed the opportunity to contribute to bringing lasting peace since they hitherto are natural peace builders in the home and Community just as they maintained that not only the educated can be peace builders.
“You don’t need all the education in the world to be a peace builder or to be a peacemaker. The UN General Assembly, recognizes this and that is why the UNSCR 1325 is a mandate to be implemented across the world and So those countries that signed have made a commitment to implement it,” said Grace Awodu, the Head Gender Peace and Security at the International Center for Peace and Reconciliation (ICP).
“It recognises that women have been resolving conflicts effectively at an informal level. So, what they’re asking now is that they should be included at a formal level since they have been effective at that level; don’t neglect them, let their voices be heard. Let what concerns them be reflected.
“You know that in those days before the reforms when it came to relief, humanitarian interventions they would just pack general things and give them they did not consider that there will be pregnant women who will have menstrual periods that they will be so weak and may need good sanitation because of their peculiar physiology.
“Women will be breastfeeding, they didn’t think that they were not bringing blankets and all those things and also their safety even within refugee camps were not considered and so they become vulnerable at the refugee camps. They were vulnerable and being molested.
“So, the 1325 has brought a clear template on how to engage, how to include. Now for any woman to be part of the peace building process there are different components; there is the one that they provide relief; there’s the one that they do empowerment; there are different types that they do in order to converge at a sustainable peace process.” Awodu added.
Similarly, a popular mediator who is Permanent Commissioner of the Kaduna state Peace Building Agency Khadijha Hawaja Gambo, maintained that women are needed in peace decision tables given their natural gift of being home builders, she recalled how mediating for peace in her community amplified her voice as well as restored peace and mended homes. This has also gained her international recognition that enabled her to travel wide and share experiences for others to learn.
Gambo stated that the benefits of fully implementing the UNSCR 1325 cannot be overemphasized since women are part of the society and are also affected by conflicts, noting that over the years decisions around security were only partially achieved because the views of women are not well captured.
“Women are part of the society where the conflicts happen, the conflicts affect them and they have a stake. They are 50% of the society. Again women are naturally endowed with empathy, they show compassion and sacrifice more as we can see how they sacrifice for children, husbands, in-laws and the family.
“Women are directly involved whether as victims or survivors. The way conflict affects men differs completely the way it affects women. Most areas in our society today men dominate and as such when decisions are made it is in tune to what they feel thereby proffering solutions to just about 50% of the population they never bring to the table the concerns and fears of women. For it to be comprehensive it must be inclusive and this means we must have them in independent and active participation not to just echo what the men are saying but to speak for themselves,’she said.
“I didn’t learn peace building in school or any formal education nor receive any training but I believe in myself, I have faith in God and purpose is my driving force to achieve something great. I believe that with commitment and focus dreams will be achieved.
“I was focused and wanted to get somewhere so I enjoy mediating in crises both for individuals and the community. The passion for Peace building made me famous, I kept growing with more people consulting me to solve issues,” she ádded..
Continuing she said that there is no better person to facilitate conflict resolution than the woman by her nature as a woman who continually resolves conflict from the home front. She added that conflict begins from the home before extending to the larger society and women understand the psychology of people more than men. Women are more positioned for this as they understand the temperament and attitude of individuals.
She also noted that only few women are involved in peace and security processes while calling for an atmosphere of inclusion where every citizen feels the sense of belonging and not discriminated against,or feel cheated.
