End the war on Nigerian Women!

On Tuesday, May 21st, Police officers raided a Marie Stopes Clinic in Lagos, harassed the health workers and patients and took away confidential client information. Marie Stopes offers free and affordable family planning services to women and men, pregnancy tests, pre- and post-natal care, treatment and services for sexually transmitted infections (STI), HIV testing and ultrasound and laboratory services. They have trained staff who offer counselling and treatment especially to those who cannot afford the costs at private hospitals. To raid a centre that provides such services is sending a message to women and girls as well as men and boys that they are not safe in health centres and that they don’t deserve access to quality health services without fear or judgement.

This is happening in a country that contributes 10% to the global burden of maternal deaths ranking fourth after Sierra Leone, Chad and the Central African Republic. Safe spaces where women can access confidential and non-judgemental sexual and reproductive health services are vital and we don’t have enough of them to reduce the risk of maternal deaths. Just before the raid in Lagos yesterday, the Minister of Health was testifying before the Nigerian Senate about the overburdened health system, the deplorable state of General Hospitals in the country and the need to revitalize the tertiary and primary health care system in Nigeria. Women and girls are dying from preventable deaths because of lack of access to quality sexual and reproductive health services.

Recently released NDHS 2018 data state: “Unmet need for family planning declined from 20% in 2008 to 16% in 2013 before increasing to 19% in 2018.” Family planning is the conscious choice by people to limit or space the number of children they have through the use of contraception. And 19% of married women in Nigeria have an unmet need for family planning services, according to the survey. Marie Stopes shouldn’t be punished for offering a spectrum of services, including family planning, to those who need and want it, especially women, married and unmarried.

The work being done by organisations like Marie Stopes is necessary to dispel myths, provide counselling on the right modern method of birth control and help women and men space their children. The National Strategic Health Development Plan 2018 – 2022 recognizes the importance of this work, which is why one of its pillars is to “Promote universal access to comprehensive quality sexual and reproductive health services throughout the life cycle and reduce maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent morbidity and mortality in Nigeria.”

Marie Stopes’ work is supporting the government in making sure Nigeria can achieve the targets to reduce morbidity and mortality, which means improving the health and wellbeing of women and girls in Nigeria. We should be celebrating their efforts, not intimidating them.

Ten percent (10%) of maternal deaths in Nigeria is due to unsafe abortion. Access to safe abortion is restricted in Nigeria, and can only take place in circumstances where a woman’s life is at risk. Even though safe abortion services are restricted, access to post-abortion care (a service for women and girls who have medical complication as a result of unsafe abortion) is not restricted. Nigerian laws and policies uphold women and girls’ rights to post-abortion services, a much needed service that Marie Stopes provides. Services providers who are implementing these policies and guidelines should not be subjected to harassment and intimidation for performing their jobs. These healthcare workers are providing care and saving lives; actions that should be praised and promoted.

These efforts to demonize and block access to legal services are being funded in Nigeria by a Spanish organisation called CitizenGO. CitizenGo is a partner to an SPLC designated hate group World Congress of Families and the city of Madrid has banned their activities calling their campaigns hate based. CitizenGo and its extremist partners have been organising trainings in Nigeria and Kenya within the past 18 months, trying to block women’s access to critical healthcare. They should not be allowed to instigate the harassment of women making informed choices about their health, and health workers who are provided life-affirming services. They are an intolerant group and they are bringing their hate mongering to Nigeria.

This group has set-up camp in Nigeria and are propagating false and unfounded sensational narratives in places like Enugu, Imo, and Nairobi under the guise of religious and moral obligations. They must not be allowed to instigate hate and oppression in Nigeria and the rest of Africa. This is a coordinated attack on the rights of women, girls, and marginalized persons and we must say NO to their oppressive tactics.

Signed
Education as a Vaccine
Nigerian Feminist Forum
Alliances for Africa
Women’s Crisis Centre
Project Alert
Vision Springs Initiative
The Initiative for Equal Rights
Women’s Health and Equal Rights Initiative
Equality Hub
Ake Arts and Book Festival
NoMore Campaign
Above Whispers
9jafeminista
Stand to End Rape
International Centre for Reproductive Health and Sexual Rights
Autamaimasa Health Foundation
Drug Free and Preventative Healthcare Organization
Women’s Rights and Health Project

Iheoma Obibi
Olabukunola Williams
Fadekemi Akinfaderin
Maream S. Muhammad
OluTimehin Adegbeye
Lesley Agams
Ayodele Olofintuade
Akudo Oguaghamba
Josephine Chukwuma
Lola Shoneyin
Ngozi Juba
Manre Chirtau
Pamela Adie
Bisi Fayemi
Azeenarh Mohammed
Funmi Juba
Ireti Bakare
Hauwa Shekarau
Wana Udobang
Charmaine Pereira
Fisayo Owoyemi
Amy Oyekunle
Oluchi Ogwuegbu
Itoro Eze-Anaba
Karo Omu
Chioma Ogwuegbu
Oluwaseun Ayodeji Osowobi
Uche Umolu
Oseyi Etomi
Sylvia Ekponimo
Rita Musa
Chika Ibeh
Toyin Chukwudozie
Otibho Obianwu
Omolara Oriye
Chibogu Obinwa
Bose Ironsi

NO to the War On Women!

Briefing Paper by the Nigerian Feminist Forum, 15 May 2019.

On the 22nd of April, 2019, agents of the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) carried out a raid on Caramelo Club in Utako, Abuja. Of the mixed clientele, men and women, only women were arrested. All the 27 women arrested were profiled as strippers, regardless of whether they were or not. Women were dragged out of the club in the nude and manhandled by male law enforcement agents. The 27 women were coerced into “confessing to prostitution”, without legal aid or counsel, and sentenced to one month’s imprisonment or a fine of N3000.

Barely a week later, further raids were carried out on several nightclubs in Abuja, on the 28th of April. Individual women were also abducted, including one who had simply gone out to buy noodles and another who was in front of a supermarket. In all, 70 women were abducted from different parts of Abuja and profiled as “prostitutes” because they were out after working hours. At a press conference, the arrested women gave testimonies of a range of violations: abduction, physical assault, mental anguish, and sexual assault. One woman who was menstruating at the time was ogled and humiliated by policemen. Women who wore wedding rings were released. The arrested women either paid between N5000 and N10,000 to be granted bail or, if they could not pay, were coerced into sex for bail.

Official raids on women in the streets at night in Abuja are not new. Activists have observed that the police and AEPB have been regularly involved in rounding up and removing women off the streets at night since the early 2000s. The previous round of overt state sponsored violence against women was in 2011, when police officers preyed upon women found on the city’s streets, dragging them onto buses, and sexually assaulting them because they were said to be “prostitutes.” Students, employees, shoppers, married women were among those abducted and told to pay N5000 to secure their freedom. Those who could not pay were tortured, brought before a mobile court, and then sent to a “rehabilitation camp” for sex workers(Isine, I. and Akurega, M. 2014.) In 2014, Dorothy Njemanze, an actor and activist, and three other women who had been assaulted by state agents, took the government to the ECOWAS Regional Court. In a landmark ruling on October 12, 2017, the Court found the Federal Government of Nigeria guilty of multiple violations of the women’s human rights. Despite this ruling however, official roundups of women in Abuja continue unabated.

Whilst extortion on the part of the police and the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) is not specific to their raids on nightclubs and abductions of women in public places at night, the manner in which the police and AEPB carry out their rounding up of women from nightclubs is very particular, being marked by sexually humiliating, coercive and violent actions. Women were stripped of their clothes and bundled naked into vans where they were sexually assaulted. This type of treatment is reserved exclusively for the women rounded up in such raids – no men were even charged by the police.

The latest state sponsored attacks on women in nightclubs signal an extension of roundups on the streets to intrusion into more enclosed/private spaces. In another instance, Ada Akunne, a Nollywood actress, was in her car on a night out with friends to celebrate a cousin’s graduation when they were stopped by police. The women were accused of being provocatively dressed and therefore “prostitutes”, particularly since there was no man in the car. The police called their colleagues to arrest the women and only released them after members of the public gathered around them. (Adebayo, B. 2019.)

State officials’ violence against women rests on the assumption that it is appropriate to divide women into two groups: “good women” – married, caregivers, sexually chaste and therefore worthy of respect – and “free women”, women whose bodies and sexualities are not under the control of men and therefore “not deserving of respect”. AEPB and police actions demonstrate their belief that women who are found on the streets of Abuja at any time after working hours fall into the category of “free women”. Moreover, they state that the environment must be “sanitised” of such women, particularly if they are thought to be dressed in ways considered too revealing. Women’s presence in the city at night, their dress, their mobility – all these are treated as “evidence” of women behaving badly and exerting a corrupting influence on the society at large.

The police have presented themselves as being concerned with “public morality”, which they (and many in the society at large) see as appropriately policed via control over the bodies of women. This is not only wholly inappropriate but also ultimately untenable. The responsibility for public morality cannot reside with women alone. Public morality would be more appropriately advanced by addressing official corruption, extortion and impunity. These are clearly not addressed by policing women’s presence in the city at night or in the evening nor by acting in ways that violate the safety of women in public.

 

By asserting that policing women’s bodies will advance public morality, state agencies justify their acts of extortion, sexual assault and rape by casting them as efforts to control crime and “promiscuity”. Police and AEPB officials have generally targeted women they consider to be “prostitutes” or else claim that the women they have targeted are “prostitutes”. The existence of commercial sex and a sex industry in Abuja is officially treated as an example of degenerate morality as well as being associated with criminality. What stands out, however, is the selective demonization by the police and the AEPB of women alone, not any of the men present in the nightclubs, the owners of the clubs or other parties involved.

Police and AEPB personnel feel justified in denying women sex workers, as well as women whom they claim are “prostitutes”, their bodily autonomy and integrity. Worse still, state agents treat the women as “fair game” – sexual objects whose bodies they are entitled to, whether through molestation, rape, the coercive exchange of ‘sex for bail’, which is also rape, or sexually degrading and intrusive language. Women who defend the rights of other women affected by state sponsored violence are also subject to such treatment. In the process, state agencies enact a toxic form of masculinity that perpetuates and legitimates rape culture.

The Nigerian Feminist Forum condemns these violations in the strongest of terms.
We demand an end to the rounding up, abductions and sexual violations of women and girls on the streets, in nightclubs, in markets, in public and private spaces in Abuja.
We demand an independent public enquiry into the latest spate of state sponsored violence against women, with substantive representation of women’s rights groups on the panel of enquiry.
We demand that the specific allegations of rape and sexual assault on the part of security and state officials should be investigated and prosecuted.
We demand the systemic transformation of all institutions involved in the state sponsored violence – particularly the police and the AEPB. This requires unravelling the obnoxious treatment of women in Abuja after working hours as “free women” whose bodies need to be controlled by official agencies. It also requires undoing the toxic masculinity which justifies male sexual entitlement to women’s bodies in institutional operations. Ultimately, it requires transforming the notion of “security” to mean, in principle and in practice, freedom for women from violence.
We insist that state agencies should actively respect the constitutional provision that the primary purpose of government is to provide for the security and welfare of all people (S.14 (2b)) without excluding women, whether these are students, hawkers, food sellers, civil servants, sex workers, married women, single women, shoppers or any other category of women.
We insist that state agencies should actively observe the constitutional provision that the sanctity of the human person should be respected and their dignity maintained (S.17 (2b)) without excluding all women’s rights to bodily autonomy and integrity.
We insist that state agencies should actively respect all women’s constitutional rights to freedom of movement (S.41(1)), peaceful association (S.40) and freedom of expression (S.38(1)).
We insist that state agencies should actively respect the constitutional rights of all women to freedom from discrimination on the grounds of sex (S.42(1a)).

 

Endnotes

1. Isine, I. and Akurega, M. 2014. ‘Investigation: How Abuja NGO, AEPB, Arrest Innocent Women, Label Them Prostitutes’. Premium Times, 10 February 2014.
2. Adebayo, B. 2019. ‘Nigerian police arrested 65 women in a raid. Some of the women say officers raped them.’ CNN, 13 May 2019.

 

Sex Work na Work – Michael Akanji

Editorial: In the past one week the Nigerian government has come under a lot of criticism when the police launched a raid on Nightclubs in Abuja, and in the process ended up arresting close to a hundred women, who were then charged with prostitution and arraigned in a court of justice.

The weird thing about these arrests is that sex work is actually not a crime in Nigeria although Chapter 21 of the Nigerian Criminal Code penalises the activities of pimps, brothel operators, underage sex workers and their patrons, no mention is made of sex workers.

Not only were the women abducted from Nightclubs, they were also sexually assaulted by the officers in charge of the arrests (we shouldn’t fail to mention that the policemen used pure water sachets in lieu of condoms.)

In this article Michael Akanji examines labour rights, dehumanization of persons labelled ‘prostitutes’ and a whole slew of other issues bordering on human rights abuse.

It is important that we know that sex work is a very big industry and respect for labor rights involves not dehumanizing the workers within that establishment by calling some persons ”prostitutes”.

If in ignorance a police spokesperson claims that because sex-workers do not pay taxes it means they do not have rights. This translates to the point that every other informal sector and/or persona that don’t pay tax should be dehumanized by the police.

Body policing and gendered dehumanization is disgusting and coming from the government that has a mandate to protect all irrespective of their sex shows that we have a set that respects not even Nigeria and Nigerians.

The term sex workers’ rights encompasses a variety of aims being pursued globally by individuals and organizations that specifically involve the human, health, and labor rights of sex workers and their clients.

Law of demand and supply, sex work is contributing to the economy. Children are kept in schools, traders are kept in business… sex-workers pay taxes… At least VAT…

Don’t blame your failed tax system on sex workers and use that to dehumanize them… Fix your tax system and your labour laws… Sex work is work and not a crime.

Labour rights need to be reformed to include sex work. Any changes to labour laws to include sex workers should not create an underclass of unregulated workers who do not benefit from rights, and should be structured in a way that benefits the largest number of sex workers.

It is myopic to assume that only female-identified persons can be sex workers, just like every field sex workers are diverse, too, male sex workers, trans sex workers, queer sex workers etc.

General recommendation 19, the CEDAW Committee observed, “[p]rostitutes are especially vulnerable to violence because their status, which may be unlawful, tends to marginalize them. They need the equal protection of laws against rape and other forms of violence.”

Runs Girls and the Sliding Scale of Nigerian Morality

Editor’s Note: Twitter outrage has become commonplace (while Facebook has become some form of family friendly place to air achievements, family portraits and unpopular opinions with relative safety). On the upside these ‘outrages’ have effected changes, as more and more people are using this platform as an avenue to hold governments to account and share histories that would have otherwise been lost in obscurity (particularly Black History).

Nigerian feminists have been using social media to educate Nigerians at large about social inequalities and highlight how cis-heterosexual men are at the top of the foodchain, how they use their privilege to keep women and sexual minorities oppressed.

The latest topic being discussed with a lot of passion is the rights of sex-workers/runs girls/side-chics (or the lack thereof). The trigger for this discussion is Falz, a Nigerian musician who embraces social consciousness, (wokeness) served with a side of misogyny.

Tracy in this article discusses how problematic Falz’s politics is.

Definition of terms

Sex Worker aka Prostitute: A man/woman/gender non-conformist or trans person who sells sexual expertise to a variety of clients. Sex workers do this professionally. By the way, sex work is illegal in Nigeria and this tends to lead to police brutality and abuse by clients or pimps.

Runs Girl: A young woman, often an undergraduate who dates rich,(married) older men. These relationships are transactional and have time limits. A runs girl doesn’t only offer sexual gratification, she also adds to the social value of the man she’s with because of her youth and attractiveness.

Side-Chic/Side Piece: This is man/woman/gender non-conformist or trans person who is dating a married person (male or female). A side piece provides the comfort of a home for clients without the responsibility that comes with marriage. Unlike the first two, side-chics/side pieces usually have a relationship with their ‘friends’ while the friend in question may provide cash or economic opportunities.

Transactional: exchange of goods or services for cash. It can also be exchange of emotional labour and investment between two or more people.

Read on…

Another day, another PSA by an entertainer about the evils of runs girls. The reactions have come in with people asking, almost in anticipation of the ‘backlash’, why this particular societal problem should not be addressed amongst others, whether people are claiming that runs is a good thing, whether those people would let their daughters live that lifestyle and, as always, whether the people protesting against this message are actually runs girls themselves.

On the other side are people questioning the need to address this topic at all, claiming that what a woman does with her body is her business and asking artists to leave runs girls alone.
What I, along with others, can’t ever get my head around is the equating, or at least placing alongside, runs with crimes of corruption, fraud, theft and actual violence. I can only imagine that it is the kind of thinking that leads to garbled songs like Child of the World ( see my critique of the song here misogyny or a massive overreaction ).

First of all, what is ‘runs’ and where, on the sliding scale of the transactional nature of Nigerian romantic relationships, does it fit?

I used to lump it in with sex work but now I’m not so sure. The term appears to cover a range of relationships where there is the expectation that a woman will be kept financially by a man, often older and far richer, by mutual understanding. In return, he gets the pleasure, sometimes exclusively, of her company including sex.

The above will of course sound familiar, not just because a kept mistress is one of the oldest practices in the world (Solomon had ‘concubines’ – I really hope they were closer to runs girls than sex slaves but I am pessimistic). It also sounds familiar because of the ‘husband-provider’ model that is supposed to be God’s will for marriages (although there is scant authority for this in the Bible).

In some cultures, this starts with symbolisation at a couple’s traditional wedding, where hubby stuffs wife’s purse with cash to show his ability or willingness to provide (she of course kneels to show submission But. That. Is. Definitely. Another. Article).
In what is essentially a two-income economy, this leads to some very strange expectations and actions. A woman who works is still responsible for the family’s domestic tasks including childcare. If a man earns less (or nothing at all), he is still ‘the provider’ and anything his wife says or does which appears to undermine this is seen as pure disrespect.

Some wives hand their husbands their salaries, or money, so he appears to pay for things. When a man loses his job, he is supposed miraculously continue to ‘provide’, which mostly consists of hanging about the home making grand plans, while studiously ignoring the housework.

Couples are very reluctant to enter into relationships where the woman earns more. Rejecting a higher paid job is one of the ways women can make ‘noble sacrifices’ for her marriage. Not all Nigerian marriages of course, but this type of thinking still surprisingly persists among young people.

I say all these to illustrate the transactional nature of marriages. In addition to the ‘provider’ male partner, you have the girlfriend’s credit alerts, bills for sick relatives that materialise shortly after a relationship starts and other things. At what point does the providing that the male partner is supposed to do metamorphose into ‘transactional sex’? People who keep carping on about prostitution being is illegal are missing the point – I highly doubt runs and other kinds benevolent relationships are illegal in Nigeria.

Another question is why the anguish by entertainers and other people, who seem to have no problem with men boasting of their ability to attract beautiful women with their wealth? Isn’t putting a line about runs girls, in the middle of a song about corruption (which has led to the loss of hope for millions of Nigerians) a bit like rapping, ‘Slavery, genocide….and dressing like a chav! Those are the three things I won’t have!’?

Is it a matter of distaste – seeing young women actively vying for a position with Alhajis? Or are entertainers pestered by runs girls the second they sit down in a hotel, or other public place, and put their phone on to check instagram?

I remember being spoken to very rudely in Nigeria by a non-Nigerian older man because I asked him for a pen. Mum explained that he thought I was a – (she didn’t say runs girl, but something very similar. On that same trip, a young man tried to offer me sex in exchange for financial upkeep – so go figure. I guess I was ahead of the times).

There are valid debates, from personal moral, religious and even feminist points of view about sex work and transactional sex. However, if you have a problem with sex work and that problem only manifests in shaming and ridiculing women involved in whatever form of transactional sex – but mostly the sugar baby/runs girl variety where women tend to have more agency – and does not include –
bashing the men who participate in transactional sex or men who use money as a way of attracting sexual attention;
addressing the problem of women being forced into transactional sex by, for example, lecturers who demand sex for grades (or more precisely not unjustifiably failing a woman), or employers who harass their female employees into sex with them or their clients;
addressing the entitlement to sex after money is spent on a woman (what’s the argument men use as an excuse for marital rape in Nigeria again? Aaaaah….bride price!);
addressing the economic reasons why women are drawn to sex work, including a bad economy, gender based discrimination, and the fact that women are often sexually harassed out of money making abilities, and linking them to their hatred of sex work; or
acknowledging that women carry out real crimes – embezzlement, murder, trafficking – instead of treating sex work as the most predominant ‘crime’ committed by women.

Then, to use Adichie’s reasoning, you don’t have a problem with transactional sex, you have a problem with women and particularly women having agency and real choices about it which is why people call you a misogynist.

In fact the only thing this serves to do is demonise sex workers along with women who have sex on terms that some people don’t agree with. Actual problems, like trafficking, are ignored.
As long as they can provide enough evidence of their near-destitution to activate our saviour complex, actual prostitutes are also not often the target of these kind of attacks.
Any woman can, of course, be labelled a prostitute at any time and in the middle of any argument. On hearing this, the woman is supposed to sink down to her knees, continue sinking until she resembles a tightly wound ball of wool, cover her eyes from the sun and shriek “No! NO! Please! Not that! Anything but that!”.

Luckily we have feminists who are brave enough to tell us that actually a woman is or should be entitled to sell sexual services if she truly chooses to and if she does, she is not exactly selling her soul or body (wives do that, not prostitutes ha ha).
But the weaponisation continues of course and female entertainers routinely find themselves victims of men taking it upon themselves to announce, without a scrap of evidence of course, that they can only afford things or advance in their careers because they are paid to have sex with older or influential men. It’s the kind of thing that in reality is a warning to all women that their reputations can be ruined by associating them with sex work.

I’ll tell you what. Let’s fight it from both ends. People are free to have an opinion about sex, transactional or otherwise, but let’s end the demonisation of women who participate in transactional sex, starting by realising that most relationships have some element of the transaction about them, and let’s end the assumption that the only way women can make money is through transactional sex. As a bonus, let’s disabuse ourselves of this notion that it is women’s job to guide the universe into sexual morality and stop the hand wringing and redefining of the term ‘societal ill’. Deal?

Sex Work and the Worth of a Woman – Olutimehin Adegbeye

Nicki Minaj wants to tell women who charge for their time, companionship and pussy to “know their worth” sis why else do you think they have rates?!

It’s so hilarious how “know your worth” is coded to mean “fuck for free”. In this capitalist world where people’s value is determined by how much money they can generate for their personal use, women’s labour is almost inevitably under- or devalued, and it is understood that sex diminishes women unless said women are expressly offering it in service to or as the property of men.

It seems to me that women charging the equivalent of some people’s monthly income (the 2k Minaj states) for sex is a sign that they know their worth.

“Know your worth” is slut-shaming, whorephobic nonsense. What a person does/doesn’t do sexually has no impact on their worth. Human beings are intrinsically worthy; it’s Minaj’s inability to divest from oppressive ideas of differential value that is the problem, not IG models.

That fake deep take of “I was critiquing myself and asking if I contributed to women selling sex because I sell sex appeal” while positioning women who actually sell sex as ‘less than’ and somehow ignorant of their own worth is traaaaaaaash and Nicki can like to gedifok.

Sex work is work. And legitimising sex work benefits everyone, particularly women. Nicki is probably just mad that a former sex worker is now being treated as a better, more interesting, more current rapper than her.

Look. Struggle all you want with the idea that sex work is legitimate labour. It doesn’t change the fact that it is. Labour = production of goods & services that have exchange value. Sex work puts material value on consensual sex the way nannying puts material value on childcare.

Sex work is a service. And heterosexual sex in particular is so often transactional, even when the exchange doesn’t involve a direct price structure. That’s why y’all’s husbands and dads are forever ‘joking’ about how they end up paying for sex one way or another.

The struggle people have is rooted in the degree of agency women sex workers in particular display when it comes to who and how they fuck, in women’s rejection of monogamy (& marriage) as the only ‘legitimate’ sex, & the radical way a woman claims ownership of her body via SW.

Sex workers claim the benefits of sex with men (bc let’s face it, most clients are male) while ostensibly escaping the costs; the servitude, denial of self etc that come with being a ‘legitimate whore’ aka a wife.

And let’s be clear: wifehood IS whoredom within traditional heterosexual marriage. Het. marriage is constructed as a contract in which a woman exchanges her sexual value for economic and social benefits. (I’m sure your feminist marriage is the exception sis, please don’t @ me.)

Bottom line: legitimising sex work will force us as a society to reckon with how our collective morality has its foundation in cis women’s vaginas. And the day society can rid itself of its obsession with all women’s bodies, vaginas or not, half our work will be done.
Go follow @thotscholar @Raquel_Savage @tilly_lawless for complex, complicated conversations about sex work. ???

Side note: there’s no place with more glamorous women enjoying their lives, drinking water, minding their biz & being sweet to one another than sugarbaby twitter lol

Side side note: dead the idea that sex work is easy, or easy money. All those memes of “if I can’t hack school I’ll just become a sex worker” are laughable. Like, have you met men??? ????

Side side side note: before you @ me to argue about wives being the ultimate whores (I use that word with intention), ask yourself why so many people believe that neither wives nor whores can be raped – that even forced, unwanted sex with wives and whores *cannot be* rape.
Okay so sex workers are agreeing with me, therefore I have done something right. I’d like to dedicate this award to my beloved mother of blessed memory.

BTW: If you’re pro-justice, a feminist, or just interested in learning about the world through a sex work(ers) lens and you’ve never read @titsandsass, you should fix that.

The article was originally posted as a thread.

Follow @ohTimehin on Twitter

STRATEGY AND INNOVATION FOR DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE (SI4DEV) GOVERNANCE GROUP – RECOMMENDATIONS ON COMBATING VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS.

INTRODUCTION

The United Nations defines violence against women as any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion, or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life.
Contrary to popular belief, violence against women goes beyond the physical and includes mental and emotional abuse. Gender-based violence covers genital mutilation, femicide, rape, sexual harassment, physical abuse, verbal abuse, psychological abuse, financial abuse, education and job deprivation, denial of political rights, trafficking and kidnapping of girls and women, among others.
STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Ironically, violence against women continues to increase, despite rising campaigns on human rights and gender equality. In their poll on domestic violence, NOIPolls Limited and Project Alert found that 54 percent of Nigerians have suffered some form of domestic violence in their homes or know someone who has. Respondents stated that majority (75 percent) of the victims of domestic violence are women, with men and children as victims at 16 percent and 9 percent respectively.
In Nigeria, violence against women is rooted in gender-based discrimination, and gender stereotypes. It is promoted by our traditions and cultures which give males excessive dominance over their female counterparts. In rural communities, the rights of women are trampled by villagers ignorant of gender rights, and many women live at the mercy of men, relegated to the background, deprived of education, liberty and inheritance. In cities, violence against women appears in cases where women are sexually harassed at their jobs or schools, in relationships or marriages lacking adequate finances and trust, or where the male has alcohol addiction, and in more secretive settings where women are trafficked for sex work.
High profile cases of violence against women in Nigeria include the abduction of girls by the Boko Haram Sect, the first being of almost 200 Chibok Girls in 2014 and more recently over 100 Dapchi Girls in March 2018. It is awful that some of these girls remained hostages of these terrorists for several months and were victims of sexual harassment, statutory rape and underage marriage.
More generally, rape has been on the increase, with the reported gang rapes of over 20 girls and women at a musical concert in Enugu recently. Intimate partner murders have also been on the rise. The fact remains that violence against women needs to be critically fought by the government and society.
CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS
Causes of violence against women include cultural norms, carefree attitude towards gender-based violence, weak legal sanctions, indoctrination of boys on lesser value of women and girls, and ignorance of women rights by members of the society. Other reasons are low educational level, personality disorders and harmful use of alcohol and drugs, criminal behaviors, difficulty in communicating marital/relationship dissatisfaction, and refusal of victims to disclose cases of violence.
The harmful effects of violence can be classified under psychological, socio-economic and medical effects:
Psychological effects – depression (may lead to suicide), low self-esteem, emotional trauma.
Socio-economic effects – Unemployment, dysfunctional relationships and marriages, divorce, substance abuse, increased social vices, juvenile delinquency and crimes including murder.
Medical effects – Injuries, miscarriage, abortion, STIs, HIV and AIDS.
EFFORTS MADE SO FAR
In 2006, the Federal Government of Nigeria instituted the National Gender Policy with the purpose of ending gender discrimination. In 2015, then President Goodluck Jonathan signed into Law the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act, 2015. Since 2015, the Nigeria Stability and Reconciliation Program (NSRP) together with the Fund for Peace(FFP) and their partners across Nigeria have been reporting on violence against women and girls. Recently, the National Human Rights Commission signed a memo with the National Council of Women Societies (NCWS) to help educate and empower women on their rights. The Women Arise for Change Initiative (WACI) also encourages women to stand up for their rights and fight their misuse and abuse by men.
Despite these efforts by government and the civil society to mitigate violence against women in Nigeria, it is apparent that more work is needed to fight the menace.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Gender-based violence isn’t just about women. Men and boys also play an important role in empowering, mentoring, and supporting women as their mothers, sisters, wives, daughters, co-workers and fellow citizens to develop our community. The Strategy and Innovation for Development Initiative, SI4DEV Governance group therefore makes the following recommendations:
Prevention is the best way to address the menace of violence against women and girls and should be priority for all stakeholders at all levels.
Women should begin to challenge the deeply rooted inequalities and social norms that reinforce tolerance for violence against women and girls and perpetuate men’s control and power over women.
Women should seek legal redress whenever they are deprived of parental or marital inheritance.
Stakeholders should use all available channels including TV, radio, newspapers and social media to raise awareness about this issue and champion community mobilization.
Opinion leaders including political leaders, religious leaders and community development association should be enlightened and engaged as advocates.
Religious bodies should educate their members on Gender based Violence.
Gender parity policies should be implemented in the workplace, education, economy and governance.
Survivors of gender-based violence should be empowered, not as victims, but as champions and advocates of gender parity and leaders of the cause against such violence.
The national Bureau of statistics should support research to get data on attitudes, perceptions and behavior of men and boys, as well as people exposed to this form of violence.
We need a long-term national orientation program to reduce the prevalence of gender-based violence in Nigeria to support behavioral and culture change among boys and girls.

SI4DEV is a non-governmental organization registered in Nigeria as Strategy and Innovation for Development Initiative. SI4DEV brings together individuals and groups and provides training on practical skills towards achieving democracy and economic prosperity for communities.

The Curious Case of D S Fapson and the Taxify Driver

On the 25th January, actress Dorcas Shola Fapson, accused, via some Snapchat posts, a Taxify driver of attempted kidnap and rape. Within 24 hours, the driver had posted a contrary account and Fapson had provided further details, including video footage of the incident – such is the power and urgency of social media these days.

I’ve found the public’s reaction to these accounts bewildering. Polarised opinions are the order of the day on social media but this case feels special. There have been disagreements on not just the story as a whole or who was right but also, the individual events which make up the story.

The only thing that everyone agrees on is that Fapson booked and entered a taxi, the trip ended badly and that pepper spray was involved. The driver says that the disagreement started when she refused to reveal her destination whereupon he stopped the trip, moved the car forward – an action which took him a few seconds – and tried to retrieve his car keys from her.

She says he tried to insist on an unregistered cash payment instead of a card payment with the company as booked, refused to take her to her destination or let her out of the car when she declined, drove her to unknown premises, tried to drag her into the building, threatened and assaulted her with a choke hold, closed the car door on her legs etc. Even stranger than the irreconcilable accounts is the focus on baying for Fapson’s blood (and anyone who tries to support her), without acknowledging these factual disparities.

While Fapson’s initial account was at first met with disgruntled silence and followed by demands for evidence, the driver’s post connected with Nigerian Twitter. Perhaps it was the perceived class differences between them but I think the real basis of the simmering rage and public outcry is the belief that this is yet another example of a woman weaponising the ability to accuse a man of rape for her own evil purposes.

The outcry fails to take into account of the fact that Fapson’s video evidence refutes some of the claims made by the driver. An example is the driver’s claim that he only drove a few yards down the road to take advantage of some security lighting. The video clearly shows him driving her to a set of gates, she stating that she doesn’t know where she is and he not counteracting that statement. He gets out of the car and hurried towards the gates, leaving his keys in the ignition (providing an answer to the stupid question ‘why would he leave his keys in the car if he meant to kidnap her?’).

The video also shows him trying to keep her in the car, rather than his account of repeatedly and politely asking her to alight and only engaging her physically to retrieve his car keys.
This is confusing because, while one could build a narrative that when she refused to get out of the car like he asked her to, he drove off to his house in frustration, reached the gates and then tried to chuck her out of the car, I can’t think of any reason he would want to keep her in the car. If he was so worried about his car, like he claimed, surely that would increase the chances of her driving off.

We do eventually hear him trying to drag her (but this is after she had asked him to let her out of the car – did he change his mind about keeping her in or was he trying to drag her on to the premises?) and we don’t see the choke hold of course. There are those better qualified than me to untangle the facts and perhaps they will get a chance to do so.

Instead of a discussion about the facts, the initial, and sustained, reaction has been one of massive outrage that Fapson dared to label this driver a rapist.

I believe this discussion sheds some light on two aspects of rape culture – the concerted effort to discredit rape and sexual assault victims for the purpose of silencing them and women who actually make false accusations that they have been raped.

In relation to the discrediting, rape is, of course, a difficult crime to prove and one way of the most effective methods for stopping victims from coming forward, is the threat that, should a conviction not occur or even before any charge is laid or prosecution carried out, the victims will be forever labelled ‘evil women’ willing to ruin lives for no justifiable reason.

If this fear affects conventional victims (raped by strangers after violence or the threat of violence), it becomes scarier when a victim has been raped by family members, close friends, relationship partners, dates or colleagues.

The silencing is perpetuated, not just by immediately assuming that the victim is lying, it includes dragging out past, unrelated sexual liaisons, slut shaming, purity culture (a woman is spoiled by sexual activity anyway – who cares whether it’s consensual or not?), spiritual blackmailing (if you don’t forgive that deacon for molesting you, aren’t you really as bad as him in Jesus’ eyes?) and questioning why she chose to drive a man to such a sexual peak that he could not help but attack her.

The culture of silencing victims is clearly traumatising and is the major reason so many victims keep quiet.

Some of these tools/weapons have already been deployed against Fapson. It is being claimed that she once begged a male singer to start a relationship with her to increase her celebrity status– information related to this incident…how?

Many people are very much aware of the above issues. While we know that too many sexual assaults go unreported because of silencing tactics, we also acknowledge that it is a terrible and devastating thing to falsely accuse a man of rape. Although it’s only fair to point out the inconsistency between Nigerians describing, on social media, the effects of rape and the effects of being accused of rape.

If a man is assumed to be falsely accused of rape, then it is a horrendous thing that will destroy his life, presumably because rape is such a terrible thing. If a man is actually proven to have raped someone then we should forgive him because everyone makes mistakes, do we want to kill him, did he kill someone, what was she wearing ……??

Anyway! False claims do happen and apart from tearing a hole through a man’s life, they drag the fight against rape and rape culture backwards. The next victim will always be prejudiced by a false rape claim.

Despite the fact that the movement for dismantling the rampant rape culture and addressing the high occurrence of sexual assaults in Nigeria is relatively new, it seems Nigerians have had enough of rape allegations already. No woman is allowed to utter the words ‘rape’ or ‘rapist’ – unless:-
(1) it has happened – I won’t bother adding ‘or is about to happen’ as, in this case, even if the attack had been in an advanced stage, some would still have insisted that Fapson could have avoided it by being polite, begged or time travelled to choose a better outfit;
(2) you have ample evidence of being raped and you are prepared to paste the evidence all over social media;
(3) you are prepared to attend a police station, even though numerous women have reported sexual assault carried out by Nigerian police officers and their reprehensible attitude towards rape victims;
(4) you never withdraw your complaint because, for the price of bringing a potentially good man down, you should be prepared to accept any and all threats to your being;
of course (5) you were the perfect rape victim – dressed modestly, not roaming the streets at night, polite and respectful to all involved, with a propensity for sprinting.

Even if you have been able to do all these and go on about it too much, Nigerian twitter will advise you to move on with your life and have some dignity for God’s sake!

There is clearly some panic about women wielding their power and privilege to cry rape at any every instance and this panic, I would suggest, is nothing new whenever there is a concerted effort to address sexual crimes. Hopefully it will pass but, when you compare the reaction to Fapson to the reaction to Kemen in BBNaija (https://talkglitz.tv/nigerians-blast-bbnaija-for-continuous-association-with-kemen-tag-him-rapst/) in April of last year, the real crime appears to be broadcasting a rape or rape attempt rather than committing one, according to Nigerian Social Media.

I hate to drag out the past but for those who don’t know the Kemen story, he was a Big Brother Nigeria contestant who was disqualified for sexually assaulting a sleeping female housemate . The real debate began after the programme concluded and Kemen was invited to join the housemates on various publicity tours and effectively resumed his status as a celebrity reality show contestant. I was grimly satisfied when the ‘woke’ people whom I follow recognised this as an outrageous endorsement of the lack of consequences for sexual assault in Nigeria. Imagine my horror and bitterness when I learned that the #freekemen contingent were not only in the majority but felt that the incident being brought to public knowledge was punishment enough and that Kemen should be allowed to flourish free from these Godless, unforgiving, judgmental people who insisted on dragging out issues that should be allowed to die down, after all ‘did he kill somebody?’ and also what was she wearing…?

Back to the recent incident, perhaps there are other ways in which Fapson could have made the incident known, if you ignore how shocking that night must have been for her. With the benefit of hindsight, maybe she could have started with a fuller account instead of short posts and labelling – but I can’t see anything wrong in her letting people know about this event, if only to stop other women from going through the same thing.

On a related subject, I notice, in addition to women who make false rape allegations, another group of women who have been condemned in this incident – women who have accused Fapson of making the whole thing up. Fapson dramatically said ‘I hope far worse happens to you, your mother and your unborn children’. Lord. Simi, in a deleted post echoing some of the sentiments that Adekunle Gold had expressed and also deleted due to the backlash from his followers (They said what to you on Twitter, Kunle? Hold my beer…..), also singled them out as being particularly reprehensible.

It is especially dispiriting when women defend sexism, rape culture and the like. It’s even worse when they take part in sexual attacks. It is surprising, as well, given that they could more readily be a victim of what they are undertaking in or failing to condemn. But I’ve always wondered (but never voiced aloud) about the claim that they are ‘worse than the men’?

It is bad for both women and men to fail to address or participate in rape culture. Men do it because of the obvious privileges of being able to act badly or not without many consequences; women do it to align with or identify with the conventional society, to cement their status as ‘good or sensible women’ and ‘not one of these crazy feminists’ and probably for other reasons, like protecting themselves against male (out) rage or even maybe because they genuinely believe what they are saying. Both have their reasons and both are equally bad, in my view.

Reproductive Health and Rights: A series of interview with women living in low-income communities(III)

After a lot of outcry, both on social media and in traditional news outlets, by feminists and human rights activists about the manner in which the proposed #GEO Bill was thrown off the floor of the National Assembly, the senate president, Senator Bukola Saraki, agreed to re-introduce the bill. It passed a second-reading, and was stalled pending a public hearing which was postponed due to the absence of the members of the senate committee in charge of the hearing.
It is important to note that on June 13,1985 Nigeria ratified, with no exceptions, the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) which is also considered the international bill of rights for women, but since its ratification, the convention has not been domesticated. The #GEO Bill actually incorporates a large part of the CEDAW.
In this interview, Jolomi* who trained as a ‘chemist’ (drug dispenser) discusses issues bordering on sexual autonomy, the high rate of abortions amongst women in her community, women’s lack of knowledge about their anatomy and inability to take reproductive health decisions due to this ignorance. She also discusses the state of primary health care facilities and the impact poor reproductive health decisions on the population.

Interview with Jolomi

My name is Jolomi, I went through primary school and got my SSCE before venturing into business. I sell medicine and run a chemist [patent medicine store]. It is common amongst women of my age that there’s a lot of ignorance about their bodies and how it works, particularly as it pertains to their reproductive health seeking behaviour. For example, most of the common cases women bring to me are about pregnancies. Like some of them they might be nursing a 2 months old baby and then they’ll come and tell me that they are pregnant. Meanwhile, this same woman might have had four or five children. This goes to show that we, women, need to know the period we should share intimacy with a man. So these women come to me asking me for a solution because they really don’t want to be pregnant yet, or some of them will say they are already pregnant and want to use something to terminate the pregnancy.

Audio excerpt 1

As you well know, prevention is better than cure, so its really important that we know our menstrual cycle so that we’ll know when we should have sex and when we shouldn’t.

I usually carry out a pregnancy test to confirm whether they are actually pregnant or not, it is important to first test for pregnancy. Because some women panic when they don’t see their period two months after delivery, so it’s important to carry out a test, if it’s positive, but if it’s negative then one will confirm that the person is not pregnant.

Usually after the first abortion and I’m able to tell them about their menstrual cycle, and their ‘safe period’, they are usually able to maintain the cycle and will stop making that kind of mistake. Once they learn about it and know it, they never return to me with the same error. And they even go ahead and teach other people about their bodies and their safe periods.

Men don’t experience the kinds of problems women have. It’s god that will have mercy on us women. It is only women that they tell about how to avoid getting pregnant, and the period they have to use condom. This is because its only women that can get pregnant, men don’t get pregnant. On the other hand, men don’t need any kind of warnings or education because they are free. For example when some women are pregnant they won’t feel like having sex again, because of this, such men knowing that if they ask their wives for sex they will get turned down, the man will prefer to have sex with other women.

Audio excerpt 2

What I’m trying to say is that a lot of men lack self-control when it comes to the matter of sex. Even medically it’s difficult for men to control themselves. When men abstain from sex it gives them stomach upset, and this is due to the way their anatomies are made. The stomach upset is caused by the fact that their semen is inside them and they need to release it, so that they’ll become lighter.

A lot of women don’t think about the impact having many children has on the population. For example, let’s say the government did a census last year and counted ten people, whatever plans they have in mind will be for those ten, but if on their return they find out that instead of let’s say 12 people they expected to see, they now find out that there are 2000 people, this causes a lot of difficulty for the government.

The government should make policies and laws that will mandate that female children must go to school up till a certain age, at least until they leave SS3. This will empower them to be able to join in moving the country forward and enable them contribute meaningfully to the society. Many people don’t believe in educating their female children. In some homes they’ll have four children, let’s say two boys and two girls, but they will educate only the boys in a meaningful way. This is because they believe that no matter how well-educated their daughter is, she will end up in the kitchen.

But it’s not supposed to be like that. It shouldn’t be like that. They should understand that women should participate in decision making, so that we women will have power too.

Children should be educated about their reproductive rights and health from the age of 11years. We are all civilized now, and things shouldn’t be covered up again. Sexual rights education should be part of the school’s curriculum, it is also important that parents should have knowledge about these things so that they can also teach their children.

I use family planning methods, the 2 months injection. My children are well spaced, and I don’t suffer from any side effects. Once I stop taking the injections, after six-months, I usually get pregnant. Although I use the services of the health centre in our neighbourhood, I really don’t like going there often. They are always complaining that they don’t have one thing or the other. Their services are never complete, so I prefer going to a private clinic.

To be continued.

• The interviews were recorded in Yoruba, transcribed and translated to English.
• The names of correspondents have been changed to protect the identities of the correspondents.
• For our Yoruba speaking audience audio notes of the women’s interviews are embedded in the article.

 

Find previous interviews here and here.

Reproductive Rights and Health: A series of interviews with women living in low-income communities (II)

In 2016, Senator Biodun Christine Olujimi, proposed the incorporation and enforcement of certain provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, this bill came to be known as the Gender and Equal Opportunities Bill (GEO Bill).

Of interest are items 5 and 7.

Item 5 seeks to modify socio-cultural practices within both public and private spaces that causes people to be fitted into stereotypes (classifying them as inferior or superior).

… every public or private educational institution shall ensure the adoption of appropriate teaching methods and curriculum including provision of facilities that emphasise the promotion of equality of all sexes in all circumstances and for all purposes, including choice of career, equal participation and inclusion of all persons in all activities of the school or institution. – GEO Bill 2016, Senator Biodun Christine Olujimi.

While item 7 directly addresses the issue of eliminating discrimination in education. The bill was thrown out of the senate.

This action shows that the Nigerian government, in spite of many studies and evidence, do not understand that the more educated a woman is, the better her understanding of her reproductive rights and eventual reproductive health seeking behaviour. When women are educated they are able to make informed choices about the kind of Family Planning Methods they would use. They can make the connection between high birth rates and population explosion and how it affects the economy and the family’s spending power.

There are several similarities between Ruth’s interview and the one granted to us by Kudirat.

Interview with *Ruth

My name is Ruth and I’m a trader, I sell everyday goods from my house. I finished my secondary school education (SS3) and I am going to be 40 years old soon. I have four children, three boys and one girl. I didn’t use any family planning methods until just before I had my daughter. And even at that I only used the contraceptive for about six months.

Audio excerpt from Ruth’s interview (in Yoruba)

I stopped using it because I was allergic to it. I went to a private hospital when I wanted to do family planning, but they didn’t carry out any test on me. They only asked me the type I wanted. They wanted to know if I would want to use the one inserted into the arm, or the one inserted into the vaginal tract [Intrauterine contraceptive Devices, IUCD], or the injections [injectable contraceptives]. I told them I would like the injection that lasts for about three months. But after I took the injection my period kept flowing, all the time, that’s why I stopped taking the injections.

It is possible that public hospitals and health care centres carry out tests to determine the type of contraceptives that will work with one’s body, but those ones [a private clinic], didn’t do any test for me they didn’t tell me about any kind of side-effect, they just said that whoever elects to do the one inserted into the arm[contraceptive implants] that it lasts for five years.

According to some people, the one inserted into the arm needs a surgery, they will first open up your arm and some other people claim that it is quite painful. This is why I didn’t go down that line. And the one that is inserted inside you also has one long rope that makes washing down there discomforting. These are the reasons I decided to take the injection, particularly since all my friends are using that same method.

Nobody told me about menstruation or reproductive health or how to take care of myself, because I never really lived with my mum. The person that raised me was an old woman and she’s not the type to discuss that kind of thing with you. But, you know, when one starts going to school, once you start getting to SS (senior secondary school) you start hearing about different things, and then the subjects we were taught, particularly if you take sciences, you know… and by then one is no longer a child…the older one gets, the wiser one becomes. It’s because the world has become so civilized. When we were at the age that these children who are getting pregnant are, nobody ever discussed sex with us, but as the world is becoming more advanced, a lot of children are growing up pretty fast. Until I left secondary school I didn’t have a boyfriend.

Audio excerpt 2 from our interview with Ruth (in Yoruba)

As far as I’m concerned as soon as a child turns fifteen, one should be telling them about sex, in fact one can tell them that if you have sex with a man you’ll get pregnant immediately. There’s this program that we watch, on Saturday evenings, that one man was accused of raping a 3year old child.

If a man can afford it nothing stops you from having as many children as possible. I have a friend whose husband loves children, a lot of children. But the man is very rich and can afford to take care of them, that man has 3 wives, but he has divorced one of them, the other two are still having children. The number of children one has depends on the man, you know some men love having children. But some people decide that they will only have the number of children they can afford. In that case both the man and the woman will discuss this. There are also some men who don’t take care of their children, once a woman knows the kind of man she’s married to, she can go ahead and do family planning.

But in some cases, the husband and wife decides to plan their families, the husband is the one who will even give his wife money to go to the hospital.

As for us, there’s no number of children that we can’t decide to have, my father-in-law has many children, and he’s always telling his own children to have many children. This is due to the fact that my father-in-law was his mother’s only child. But then everyone has to decide the number of children they want to have, depending on whether they can afford it.

Especially with how everybody is becoming educated and school fees are becoming higher. It’s not everyone who has a high number of children that’s not educated, it depends on individuals and their love for children. I once worked in Lagos with a couple, very rich couple, but they have only two children, if this couple decides to have ten children, they can afford it. Education has nothing to do with the number of children you have.

To be continued.

• The interviews were recorded in Yoruba, transcribed and translated to English.
• The names of correspondents have been changed to protect the identities of the correspondents.
• For our Yoruba speaking audience audio notes of the women’s interviews are embedded in the article.

Reproductive Rights and Health: A series of interviews with women living in low-income communities (I)

Nigeria is in the midst of a population explosion, and this is in spite of the fact that maternal and neo-natal mortality figures are pretty high. Since 1992, several Nigerian governments have embarked on massive Family Planning campaigns and billions of naira has been poured into making available family planning tools in a bid to control population growth.

Nothing appears to be working.

In order to get a grasp of people’s knowledge of their reproductive rights and reproductive health seeking behaviour, we conducted a series of interviews with the most affected populace, women living in low income communities. Below are excerpts from the interview, also attached, for our Yoruba speaking audience, are some voice notes from the interview.

Kudirat

My name is Kudirat*, my education came to an end in JSS2, I learnt hairdressing but I’m no longer a hairdresser, because I don’t have money to set up a business. I have three children. After I had my first born I fainted and afterwards started having dizzy spells. My first born was delivered in Lagos by a nurse. I had the other two at home, here in Ibadan. When I was pregnant with my second child the nurse asked me to go for a blood test, when the results came back I was told that I don’t have enough blood. Then I was also asked to do a scan they also said that the child was not healthy, but I delivered the child in spite of it all. I attended antenatal clinic in Lagos when I was pregnant with my second child but delivered her at home in Ibadan. I don’t attend any clinic after delivering my children.

Audio 1

My first child did not take any vaccination, but the second one had a few shots, it seems that the third one had a few vaccinations too. The reason I don’t take vaccination for my children is because at the health centre, when we go to take vaccinations, they ask us to bring #200 naira and a bar-soap, afterwards you’ll have to pay #100 per visit. I don’t know whether the people that give the vaccinations are doctors, nurses or healthcare providers trained to give vaccinations, I just know that they are all from the government and they work at the clinic.

My husband and I did not discuss anything pertaining to the number of children we are going to have, there was no discussion of such between us. After I had our third child, my husband asked me to go to the family planning clinic and start taking contraceptives, that I should do the one for three years. I refused because I don’t know how I can cope with something I’ve never done before. He was very angry and started shouting about money, that where do I expect him to find #400 naira each time I have to go to the clinic. I don’t know why that is such a big deal, because as a lot of people know, that family planning has side-effects and anything can happen. Things go wrong all the time, and anybody who claims that there are no side effects and things don’t go wrong is lying, things go wrong! Even though some people claim that things don’t go wrong, they are lying, things go wrong!

Audio 2

Although I’ve never met anyone that has had a personal experience with the way things can go wrong, but I know because women are always talking about these side-effects, although some people say it’s a lie, things go wrong.

While some women claim that taking contraceptives did not work, and they got pregnant in spite of it, some women claims it makes them lose a lot of weight, while others says it makes their stomachs bigger.

When it seemed that I was pregnant I went to *Mummy T to collect some medicine, after doing a pregnancy test for me she confirmed that I was pregnant, so I asked her what to do, she told me about one medicine like that that she uses anytime she doesn’t want to have a baby, but she said it cost #1,200, me I had only #350 on me, so she said I should try another medicine, but when I got to the chemist they told me it costs #500 naira. So I told them my dilemma and they gave me some other medicine to use.

To be continued…

• The interviews were recorded in Yoruba, transcribed and translated into English.
• The names of correspondents have been changed to protect the identities of the correspondents.
• For our Yoruba speaking audience an excerpt from the audio of the interview is embedded in the article.