Re: The UK’s development partnership with Nigeria - written evidence

Written evidence provided by Barrister Uchechi Ucheoma Dibiaezue, and Dr Chinyere O. Uche. Barrister Uchechi Ucheoma Dibiaezue, whose background is in law is the Program Director of Godiya Women Education and Sustainable Development Initiative in Nigeria.  Her current work with women addresses conflict, and reconciliation with an emphasis on access to justice. Dr Chinyere O. Uche is an academic at the University of Bristol (UK) whose research expertise focuses on social issues. She has prior working experience in civil society including gendered non-governmental organisations that provide services to women affected by sexual-based violence. She has written on land conflict. In this submission, we would like to address the question below.

What opportunities are there for the UK to work with civil society, particularly women, to prevent conflict, promote peace and reconciliation in the Sahel?

This paper outlines two main areas of opportunities for the UK to work with civil society, particularly women, to prevent conflict, promote peace and reconciliation in the Sahel. The opportunities identified based on frontline field work are in restorative justice, and work on sexual and gender-based violence.

Restorative justice in the context of conflict

Restorative justice is associated with conflicts between parties that have been affected by crime. In many communities, young men are involved in criminal offences like leadership dispute, ethnic and religious violence, physical conflict, land conflict, conflict over property and conflict over right/access to mineral resources in communities. Conflict has led to insecurity, tension in communities, internal displacements, under development of some regions, and irregular migration flow. These conflicts limit development opportunities in Nigeria. To effectively address conflict, initiatives need to recognise the role of women. In Nigeria, women in local communities are often disproportionately affected and impacted by the outcome of conflicts that arise from the criminal offences. For instance, women are affected through their parental role as carers, or spousal role which involves acting as financial providers in households. 

In both roles, women are forced to accommodate young men implicated in conflict within communities. The women are placed in a vulnerable position where they have to deal with everyday violence and conflict that are caused by the young men. The women in these communities who are often involved in farming or petty trading lose their source of livelihood as a result of the conflict. Loss of source of livelihood can be as a result of damages to their property during conflicts. Such losses can also be related to their use of livelihood as compensation for harm caused by the young men. The women often lack the financial resources to afford the services of a lawyer or pay court fines. Therefore, the women are compelled to use their livelihood to meet bail conditions in situations where their partner or children are incarcerated or make restitution for damages where a fine or penalty is imposed by a court. In most cases, the women are unable to fully recompense the victims.

We believe that restorative justice initiatives can provide an opportunity for the UK to collaborate with women-led civil society organisations to facilitate ‘community legal education’ and promote more accessible legal solutions. This initiative should focus on women in underserviced communities as the beneficiary of skill, knowledge, and values necessary to facilitate the process of restorative justice. More precisely, women would be trained as paralegals in their community. The women trained paralegals will enable victims, offenders and communities access to justice. It would emphasise the use of non-custodial measures to rehabilitate offenders which is expected to forestall further, conflicts and promote reconciliation strategies. The focus on rehabilitation is expected to reduce crime, prevent and or resolve conflicts while tackling overcrowding in prisons. More importantly, women would not be forced into poverty by giving up their source of livelihood in order to make restitutions or settle court fines.

Sexual and gender-based violence in the context of conflict

Sexual and gender-based violence is a form of conflict that also disproportionately affects women across society. Women suffer abuse, harassment, rape and other forms of violence. For this enquiry, we are concerned about female law enforcement officers, paramilitary officers and female inmates who in the face of conflict within the environment become victims of sexual and gender-based violence. We point out that female law enforcement, paramilitary officers play an active role in addressing and tackling conflict within our society. However, female officers are often the target of gender-based violence in the workplace. The perpetuators are often the superiors and supervisors in the workplace. These female officers often remain silent because of the existing process of complaint does not guarantee a fair hearing and accountability.

Our other concern is how conflicts affect female inmates from the perspective of sexual and gender-based violence. We are concerned about how female inmates are regularly subjected to gender-based violence in custodial centres. Violence worsens during periods of conflict. Examples of conflict include riots, disruptions or unrests amongst inmates in custodial centres. During the conflict, some prison officers rape the female inmates in custodial centres. The female inmates do not have a complaint mechanism that ensures that perpetuators are held accountable for sexual and gender-based violence as well as eradicating this abhorrent practice. In addition, the female inmates do not have access to standard health care provisions for victims of sexual and gender-based violence. There are no clearly designed healthcare provisions to support the physical and mental health of female inmates in recovery from such violence. We would like to recommend UK partnership with women-led civil society organisations in the following areas:

     Developing gender-based programmes that cover these three categories of women. 

     Developing systems that strengthen the internal process of the Correctional Service (s) and that of law enforcement agencies to handle such complaints, enforcing discipline and prevent reoccurrences.

     Developing initiatives that ensure that female law enforcement and paramilitary officers have access to an independent complaint mechanism that protects their interest and their jobs.

     Strengthening access to gender-based health care solutions for inmates.

Signed

Barrister Uchechi Ucheoma Dibiaezue, and Dr Chinyere O. Uche.

3