Her Majesty, Olori Wuraola Zaynab Otiti Ogunwusi, is the Queen of Ife and in this interview with Yemisi Izuora, she says that the Nigerian society needs a paradigm shift from complacency to real awakening against Gender Based Violence.
Your Majesty, may we know you better?
My Name is Olori wuraola Zaynab Otiti Ogunwusi. My husband is the ooni of Ife Oba Adeyeye Enitan Babatunde Ogunwusi.
Are there laws in place to address domestic violence in Nigeria?
Violence against women is against their fundamental human rights. But at that level, legal support has been very skeletal because most women prefer to stay in abusive relationships rather than face the ridicule of living outside wedlock. In 1985, Nigeria joined the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. But there has been no corresponding bills passed by the local legislature to support that convention, so it remains largely useless. In 2015, Nigeria enacted the Violence Against person prohibition act which has wider reaching coverage beyond violence against women. But it did not specifically address the issue of violence against women which has its own deep rooted peculiarities. Thankfully enough, Lagos state leads the others with stronger prosecutions against this crime, but even at that, what comes to the courts are less than a tip of the iceberg. So we have decided to push for more specific bills to address this issue. But more than that, the real fight will be to instigate a paradigm shift; to heal the psyche of the abused women by encouraging them to rise up and speak out and to provide support across the board. To set up response hot lines, to create massive awareness through all media about how to respond when you are abused and to set up help and support centres. To work with law enforcement to ensure that more cases are brought to book. Neighbours and relatives should be encouraged to blow the whistle on abusers of women, even when the women are not willing to fight for themselves!
Are there known institutions that have the responsibility to prevent domestic violence and how have they performed?
A lot of organizations especially non-governmental organizations, NGOs are dealing with this matter but we are much more interested in the social engineering aspect of it. We are trying to change the way society treats this matter. In Nigeria, the social system is based on the patriarchal structure, when it comes to gender issues. It is the belief in Nigeria and in most African societies that when a woman is married, she surrenders to her husband. Which is normal, you surrender in love and respect but you also want to be treated with respect and love too. What women consider love is care, just as men consider loyalty as love. She is required to obey her husband. But in the typical mind of a twisted Africa, the man, he considers Violence against a wife as a tool that the husband uses to chastise his wife and to correct her. The common loss of women’s right to marriage in sub-Saharan Africa and the implicit obedience and deference towards men is socially encouraged within the society. It’s beautiful to feel my husband own me and that means I should be protected, but not so with men whose minds are twisted. In situations where bride price is paid, the husband assumes that he has purchased a property, practically a slave when he marries, he assumes that he has every authority to do anything he likes with his wife!. It is pathetic. Women do not go to the police because they do not trust the police and for fear of stigmatization. Sometimes Nigerian women are beaten, raped and even murdered for supposed transgressions, which can range from trying to defend themselves from oppression or not having meals ready on time to visiting family members without their husband’s permission. It has been shown that 25 per cent of women in Nigeria has to go through the ordeal of domestic violence silently. The worst forms of them are battering, trafficking, rape and homicide.
What actually prompted the creation of #1in3Africa Campaign which you are driving and when did it debut?
The #1in3Africa is a personal platform of mine that tries to amplify the cry against sexual and domestic violence against women. I was prompted to start this campaign because from my position as a final resort to women who are going through challenges, in my domain, I have discovered that our women are suffering a lot in the hands of the same men upon whom they depend for love and protection. Some of the cases are mind boggling. And the frightening thing is our society seems to accept it as normal. And this thing is perpetuated in some cases through generations. Mothers who are abused raised daughters who expect to be abused and more often than not, it happens. Fathers who beat their wives, end up producing sons who are wife beaters! And the impact on society is terrible. In so many cases, the women die. When this does not happen, it leaves the women so low in self esteem. They think themselves undeserving of prosperity and accept a failed life! It is very unfortunate! All these are the things I could not live with, having seen them in such magnitude. So I decided to launch out, to lead a movement which others seem to regard as a no one’s business. Our first major effort, which was the campaign march, took place on Friday 30Th March 2017.
What is the major focus of the campaign and how is it funded?
The main focus of the campaign is to form a reference point and a guide to society, in terms of how to treat this malady of violence against women. It is to tell everyone that it is a crime. It is to bring to everyone’s attention the terrible damage that this scourge is doing to our society. Finally, it is to let all victims know that unlike what the society implies, it is not their fault that they were victimized and to make all potential abusers aware that there is someone watching them and that if they are caught, they will pay dearly for this. Ultimately, it is to stop the scourge of gender based violence against women. Funding so far has been my sole responsibility. But we welcome any organization or individual that may in any way want to support us.
Many people and organizations like yours have pushed for an end to domestic violence in the past what difference do you think this latest campaign would achieve?
We have a very strategic approach. First of all, we have a network of individuals who have great loyalists on social media. Through these links, we intend to launch a massive awareness against this malaise. Information is power. When the women in question are adequately informed on where to seek help and how to react, that is the first step. Then we have massive support of the Nigerian Police. We intend to ensure that arrests are made and that prosecutions are carried out and it is already happening. Women are already rising up to call for help and the Police are responding in good measure. Then again we are giving a massive push on mainstream media. Finally, we intend to push for a bill supporting our objectives at the House of Assembly. We will not stop until we establish a paradigm shift towards a respect for women and an end to gender based domestic violence.
Have you taken the time to study the trend of domestic violence in the country and what do you think is responsible for this?
Considering the magnitude of the scourge, it becomes difficult to point at any particular reason. It becomes the result of an agglomeration of several reasons. It’s not only economic down turns, it’s not only technology, making women informed faster than before and threatening male chauvinisms, it’s not only a gradual erosion of our moral world, growing alongside other equally harmful maladies as corruption, and so on and so forth. So in the overall, I will say that it is a negative precipitation of the times in which we live. Just like corruption, terrorism, cybercrime, domestic violence is rising at a fast pace. So it is something that has to be confronted and dealt with as the pandemic that it is. When you hear that Ebola virus has broken out, you just want to contain and eliminate it first before paying attention to the root causes. That is the approach we are employing now. Of course, we are addressing the issue of root causes, through seminars, counselling and communication extensions.
Nigeria is a signatory to some notable protocols and in some cases have domesticated some UN charter on equal access to education and To a large extent Lagos state has criminalized such acts, why do we still witness such acts?
We still witness it because perpetrators simply know that they will get away with it. They are still being shielded by the society’s out dated attitude whereby gender based violence against women is treated as a family matter, and people shy away from interfering. We still witness it because the majority of the victims do not yet know how to get help. But all that is fast changing. We are ensuring that our society is being moved towards a different perception and reaction mode against this evil.
Often culture and tradition has undermined efforts of women reporting abuses, how does your platform intend to deal with this?
This is a good question. The greatest deterrent to the solution of the problem of domestic violence is families telling their daughters to “endure”, to remain married, for the sake of the children and to avoid the stigma of “divorce”. This is unfortunate. None of the reasons for which anyone would want to suppress any vociferation against domestic violence is worth the life of a young mother. None of those reasons are worth the terrible impact this evil is having on the lives of children who regularly witness their mothers being abused. This is what we are trying to bring to the fore in order to change some unreasonable idea of culture and tradition as regards this evil. We are highlighting the terrible consequences, we are documenting cases and we are engaging in various communication systems to drive home the point. We are trying to let society understand that life should come first before family pride and societal stigma. We are encouraging all to accept that the important thing is that domestic based violence has to stop and the first step towards stopping it is by exposing perpetrators, allowing the women to speak out, and also stretching forth help to some of these men by ways of counseling, therapies because what our society really don’t look into his mental health. Most of these men really don’t want to be doing this but it’s inherent in them it’s like a virus in them that needs an anti virus so the ones that are willing to change will get help to save their homes.
How successful was your sensitization match in Lagos and from feedback do you see women embrace that move?
I am pretty encouraged by what I saw and I am still seeing! People whom I never knew that they know about me, have joined my social media pages and have congratulated me in their hundreds! It is beautiful. I know that we have made an impact and I know that we are now enabled to make more impacts. We are beginning to receive an avalanche of reports, some of people who would want to remain anonymous. We are setting up systems to address these issues.
How do you intend to spread this campaign given that rural women are most vulnerable as they lack education about their rights as enshrined in the Constitution?
We have rural communication extension plans. We have started doing a lot in this regard, long before we decided to do the march. As a matter of fact, it is the multitude of cases that I have witnessed in the rural areas that led me to try and amplify this cry against this social sickness. The electronic media is super effective in the rural area. They all listen to radios. We are amplifying the noise through radio broadcasts. And in terms of prosecutions in traditional settings, we will enlist the help of baale’s and other traditional paramount chiefs, to give it traditional credence.