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Abduction and forced marriages
Posted By: Rilwanon: March 13, 2016In: EditorialNo Comments Print Email
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Abduction and forced marriages
It is time to bring this injustice to an end

The exposure of several cases of child-abduction, forced conversion and coerced marriage has revealed the fault lines of religion and ethnicity that continue to bedevil Nigeria. They also demonstrate the failure of the country’s law-enforcement capabilities and question its capacity for cultural growth.

Several high-profile cases have come to public notice in the last few weeks. There is 14-year-old Lucy Ejeh, kidnapped in Zamfara State by one Hajiya Zarau in 2009 and forcibly converted to Islam. There is 14-year-old Blessing Siman, a Junior Secondary School (JSS) 2 student, who was abducted in 2010 in Lugbe, Abuja, by one Bilhadi Yakuba alias Dan Daura, converted to Islam and married to him.

There is Patience Paul, a 14-year-old primary six pupil, seized by two male neighbours in Sokoto in August last year, and allegedly held captive in the palace of a traditional ruler. And there is 14-year-old Ese Oruru, seized in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State by one Yunusa Dahiru, taken to Kano State in August 2015, converted to Islam and married. Miss Oruru is now pregnant.

These cases are all distinguished by several disturbing features. The victims were all well below the legal age for sexual or marital consent. Their abductions received cultural sanction; the conversions and marriages got the full approval of the abductors’ communities. There was no apparent objection to the abductions from the police or judicial authorities, who in several cases, facilitated them.



How is it possible for normal teenage girls who had no association with criminality of any sort to be taken in public, in broad daylight by individuals who had absolutely no concept of the impropriety of their actions? In some cases, the whereabouts of the girls were known to their parents, but they were unable to retrieve them due to the opposition of prominent members of the community as well as the police.

In other contexts, abductions of this sort are roundly condemned for the crimes that they are; the widespread denunciation of kidnappings by insurgents, ritualists and ransom-seekers is clear testimony to that fact. When it comes to these abduction-conversion-marriage cases, however, it appears that some Nigerians prefer to hide under the cloak of religion and culture to justify them. Police officers who are supposed to treat complaints from the girls’ families with dispatch are indifferent or even hostile; judges arrest complainants and allow abductors and their victims to escape; traditional rulers provide safe havens for abductors and empower them financially and otherwise.

The logical consequence of such attitudes is that the abductions of girls has continued unabated; it took the celebrated Ese Oruru case for the public to realise that the medieval practice of wife-capture has continued into modern times, despite Nigeria’s claims to decency and its pretensions to civilization.

There are those who feel that it is wrong to read religious meanings into the abductions and coerced marriage of girls. When people are kidnapped for ransom or ritual purposes, they argue, nobody refers to the religious affiliation of their abductors. The fact is that the religious element to these cases is simply too obvious to be denied. The abducted girls were all Christians; they were abducted by people who claimed to be Muslims; they were converted to Islam without the permission of their parents; they were married ostensibly under Islamic tenets.

Nigeria must begin to draw the line against criminal actions that appear to have the sanction of religion or culture. Any practice which goes against the fundamental human rights of the citizenry as enshrined in the constitution must be banned outright. There must be no allowance for sentimental appeals to culture, tradition or religion which only serve to create a loophole for the blatant violation of the inalienable freedoms of fellow-citizens.

While eliminating cultural and religious justifications for patently criminal activity, the country must ensure that it also deals with the police, judicial and traditional authorities who either ignore or collaborate with those who abduct underage girls. In several cases, the police have been indicted for their poor response to these crimes. All cases of alleged abduction must be reviewed, and where dereliction of duty can be proven with respect to the police, those found liable should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The same goes for the traditional rulers whose actions have made them complicit. There can be no room for compromise; those who abuse their positions to perpetrate criminality should have no refuge whatsoever.

It is especially important that justice be seen to be done in these cases, given the way in which the potent mix of religion and ethnicity intersect within them. By ensuring that no one is above the law, regardless of ethnicity, religion or social status, the simmering tensions triggered by these cases can be doused.

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nigeria which way?

The damnable zuu

highpriest4:
The damnable zuu

u can say that again.

Bodeloja and Femifimile are one and the same

Jobless IPOB youth

Obiodunukwe:
Bodeloja and Femifimile are one and the same

Jobless IPOB youth

almajiri boko paedophile don't divert the focus of the thread.

Obiodunukwe:
Bodeloja and Femifimile are one and the same

Jobless IPOB youth

almajiri boko paedophile don't divert the focus of the thread paedophile.

My fellow omo IGBO

Like Ohaneze said, the problem of Igbo land is not Hausa . It is joblessness crime and corruption

bodeloja:


almajiri boko paedophile don't divert the focus of the thread.

but y do grown ass men feel the need to rape children?

exposure of several cases of child-abduction, forced conversion and coerced ... the fault lines of religion and ethnicity that continue to bedevil Nigeria.

Obiodunukwe:


My fellow omo IGBO

Like Ohaneze said, the problem of Igbo land is not Hausa . It is joblessness crime and corruption

Why are u so silly?

waternogeteneny:

Why are u so silly?

He is not just a peadophile from the land of terrorist.

Obiodunukwe:


My fellow omo IGBO

Like Ohaneze said, the problem of Igbo land is not Hausa . It is joblessness crime and corruption

stay off my mention Aboki. bloody peadophile!

Am not surprise afta al pro moha'd married nana aisha @ age 6 n consummate @ age 9 accordg 2 reknown islamic scholar al-abuckar sahih. He posited also dat d prophet had conjuag relanship with female slaves, so no suprise bt such barbarism must stop.

resty4:
Am not surprise afta al pro moha'd married nana aisha @ age 6 n consummate @ age 9 accordg 2 reknown islamic scholar al-abuckar sahih. He posited also dat d prophet had conjuag relanship with female slaves, so no suprise bt such barbarism must stop.

definately their is no place for this in Nigeria today. u cannot take children of non muslims as slaves.

lalasticlala seun ishilove mukina topic for FP

I can't understand how some people in the name of religion, accommodate paedophiles.