By JOSEPHINE IGBINOVIA
After a stint in journalism, Mrs. Josephine Effa Chukwuma, a graduate of English and Literary Studies, journeyed to The Netherlands in 1992 for a Master’s degree in Development Studies,  specialising in women and development and then International Law and Social Justice.

This decision was influenced by her growing concern for women and children. Josephine, who has since 1995 been a human rights activist campaigning for the rights of women, is the Executive Director  of Project Alert on Violence Against Women, a Lagos-based organisation which is about 12 years old.       Hear her:

The genesis
Project Alert came up as a result of an identified need for an organisation that will deal systemically with the issue of violence against women and young girls. This is because prior to 1999, what a lot of human rights organisation did was have a desk called ‘Women and Children Desk.’

I mean, just a desk! So, this was swallowing women and children issues, and at that time in Nigeria’s history, we were clamouring for democracy and civil rule. Hence, that was what almost all human rights organisations were focusing on.

Chukwuma....abused young girls today are potential prostitutes of the future

So, women’s issues were getting lost in that situation. I was in one of the human rights organisations, Constitutional Rights Project-CRP, at that time, and I started their programme on women and children in January 1995. Increasingly, I was getting restless that because of the broader issues of democracy and all that, women’s issues were not being given attention.

This was again coming after the Beijing Conference in 1995 where 12 critical areas of concern were identified as affecting women globally. One of such areas was violence against women. At CRP, I kept getting cases of abuse and violence against women and I was getting restless more and more. So, at some point, I had to disengage from CRP in December 1998, and I started Project Alert in January 1999.

Project Alert
The name of the organisation speaks for itself. Basically, we’ve been focusing on issues on violence against women and young girls. These violence include physical, sexual, psychological and harmful traditional practices. All these violence occur at home and in public places.

Our mission is to provide information on various forms of violence against women, and second, to provide support services to victims of violence. This we do through our research and documentation programmes. We also do human rights education to properly educate people because it is only a problem shared and a problem conceptualised to be a problem, that can be solved.

A lot of violence against women occur under the umbrella of culture, tradition, religion, etc. Violence against women is a human rights abuse because in every act of violence against women, there is a human rights abuse. When a woman is being beaten by her husband or kicked around, that is torture! And, Chapter 4, our constitution which focuses on fundamental human rights says “Every Nigerian; man, woman or child, has a right to dignity of the human person, freedom from torture, etc” What is dignifying in the way widows are treated? Their dignity is taken away from them!

They’re told to sit on the floor and mourn, not to take their baths, to eat with dirty hands, to drink the water used in bathing the corpse! What is dignifying in a young girl being gang-raped? Is that not torture? What could be more tortuous than the abuse of bodily integrity? This is why I say that in every form of violence against women, one or several human rights abuse have taken place.

When you read through the Child Rights Acts, you’ll see that it talks about the right of the child to protection, survival, development, etc. What else could take away that right than the way little girls are being abused physically? Little children are abused physically and sexually in the room, on the street and even in schools!  We cannot divorce violence against women from human right.

Many women and young girls have been raped to death! By so doing, their right to life has been denied them. The right to freedom from discrimination is also abused in families! When they have to choose who will go to school in times of financial difficulties, they choose the boy first even if the girl is more brilliant.

How we’ve fared
The work has been pretty challenging, I must say. However, it has been fulfilling in the sense that we are touching lives and dealing with human beings like us. It makes us here at Project Alert realise that the difference between us and that woman out there suffering abuse, is just the grace of God because it is not about how rich, educated or beautiful you are as a woman.

I’m lucky, and I thank God that no daughter in my family experienced any form of abuse while growing up. Some of the young girls we label commercial sex workers today were abused right from infancy; defiled by parents, neighbours, uncles, etc. And, the truth is that when the people you trust in your life abuse you, when you grow up, you no longer attach any serious meaning to certain kinds of abuse.

Hence, you believe you can use your body for anything, and do anything with anybody. These are the people we pass judgments on without even pausing for a second! What is giving me this knowledge now is the work I do because I’ve seen a lot of young girls who are being abused.

Without help, counselling, and proper guidance, those young girls who are being abused today by teachers, fathers and people old enough to be their grandfathers, will grow up with low self-esteem and with the habit of sleeping around with anybody.

These abused young girls today are potential prostitutes and commercial sex workers of the future. That is why when an abuse happens, we should give the victims help rather than blame them.

What they need is sympathy and assistance because one can have a bad childhood and still have a good life ahead if well-guided. But, this is only possible when the support systems are available.’