JOHANNESBURG — South African women
married to Nigerians, yesterday, threatened to
stage mass protest in Johannesburg to stop
discrimination against them, their husbands
and children.
Mrs Lindelwa Uche, the chairperson of the
United Nigerian Wives in South Africa,
UNWISA, made this known in an interview with
the News Agency of Nigeria during the launch
of the association, Sunday, in Johannesburg.
Uche said that South African society did not
take their marriage to Nigerians as serious
relationships.
Some South African women married to
Nigerians staged a peaceful protest in
Johannesburg.
She said: “Our society does not take our
marriages serious, they see our marriages as
relations of convenience and perceive us as evil
to the society.
“All of us are South Africans married to
Nigerians living in South Africa, we decided to
come together to fight against stigmatisation,
discrimination, and humiliation, against our
families by government departments and
agency and the officials of the government,
the community and our-in-laws.”
The chairperson said an earlier protest march
by the members of the association had not
generated any response from the Home affairs
office.
“We protested against discrimination from
home affairs officials in March this year, and
since after that protest we have not received
any response from the government. We felt
before we embark on any further action we
should come together and form an association
registered by law.
“After the official launch of our association,
our next action will be more than just a protest
march to the city of Johannesburg home affairs
office. It is going to be a protest where we will
strip on the street of Johannesburg, so that
people and government will know that there is
an existing body and that we are not happy
with the way our non South Africans husband
and children are being treated.
“We also plan to carry our protest to Nigeria,
we know that some South Africans also have
businesses in Nigeria, if it is necessary we will
take actions that will stop South Africa
businesses operating in Nigeria. Indeed we are
ready to go that far.
“We have been quiet for so long but we cannot
can’t take it anymore, for the sake of the
future of our children, we have to put an end
to this discrimination.”
She said there was need for them to
collectively tackle the issue of some Nigerians
residing in South Africa being unfairly
separated from their families due to pending
residence permit that eventually lead to
deportations.
“If we don’t stand up as daughter of the soil
and fight discrimination against our marriages
who will, if we don’t stand up and fight for the
rights of our husbands when they are being
violated and treated shabily by officials of the
government and citizens alike who will.
“If we don’t stand up for our children when
they are being called derogatory names like
“Small lee kwere-kwere” or turning their
natives names upside down deliberately by our
community in the name of making them feel
like aliens, outcast, and unwelcome, or even
when their Nigerian aunties and uncles call
them bustards, then their future is in
jeopardy.
“If we don’t stand up when our countrymen
and women, officials and in-law address us as
paper wives, gold diggers, stupid and
opportunist, who will do that for us, ” Uche
queried.
She said the notion that all Nigerians are
criminals must be corrected.
“We are in a country of law and order, if
anyone is found guilty let the law take its
course, we are not saying Nigerians
are good or bad, even in the South Africa
society, there are criminals and indeed there is
no country in the world that does not have
criminals,’’ Uche said.
Ikechkwu Anyene, President of the Nigeria
Union in South Africa (NUSA), said the
association is a good initiative by the women
who are suffering discrimination and
humiliation because they are married to
Nigerians.
“We at the NUSA have been working with them
even before the association was registered as a
body, we were with them when they carried a
protest match to the home affairs office in
Johannesburg,
“we will continue to support them to achieve
their goal which is to put an end to
discrimination by the government officials and
their brothers and sisters towards them for
being married to Nigerian.
“The initiative is also to unite Nigeria and
South Africa and indeed the whole of Africa,
to see each other as brothers and sisters and
to ensure that we stand by one another,”
Anyene said.
He, however, advised the body to carry along
all South Africans married to Nigerians
irrespective of their tribe and geo-political
zone and the tribe of their husbands.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/08/s-african-women-married-to-nigerians-threaten-protest/

This is serious. Never knew such existed, let alone of being for so long like this!

They don't want their women married to Nigerian men, thereby discriminating them at the detriment of their future so to speak.

I guess there are only trying to protect them against some measures. We are rated dangerous. Awon eyan buruku ti ba awon eyan rere je!
What happened to "Pan African" vision?

I pray it works out as planned!

Women with n.aked protests sha!