That Grace Ushang should not die in vain

It took a long while coming. Yet, when about 1000 protesters, under a coalition called ‘Grace Ushang Victims and Survivors of Violence Against Women in Nigeria’, stormed the National Assembly on Friday to protest the murder of a youth corps member, Grace Ushang, there was a sense of purpose among the participants.

Miss Ushang, 24, an indigene of Cross River State, was raped and murdered in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, in September while she was spending a year as a member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

A coordinated campaign

The protest was coordinated by several civil society organisations, including Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA), Nigeria Feminist Forum, Alliances for Africa, Coalition for Change, Open Society Initiative for West Africa, Nigeria Bar Association, Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), IPAS and others. The protesters, including youth corps members, were led to the National Assembly by the national president of the National Council of Women Societies (NCWS), Ramatu Usman; coordinator of WRAPA, Saadatu Mahdi; wife of the former Chief Justice of the Federation, Maryam Uwais; and Anselm Odinkalu of the Open Society Justice Initiative.

They carried placards with inscriptions such as “Take action, stop female battering”, “Protect Corp Members from Rituals”, “Rape Is Criminal”, “Gender Balance is a Serious Agenda”, “No Woman, No Cry”, “Save the Women, Save the Future”, “Women have Right to Good Life”, “We must not be silenced”, “Women are not Slaves” and “Grace Ushang is a Woman.”

Others included “Shun assault to Women Now”, Women are not punch bags”, “No to sexual abuse”, “Helen Johnson is a woman”, “Rape is a crime against humanity” and “Women won’t wait, shun assault to women.” The protesters, most of whom wore black T-shirts with Miss Ushang’s portrait imprinted on them, were received by some female lawmakers led by the chairperson of the Senate committee on women affairs, Eme Ekaette and her counterpart in the House of Representatives, Binta Masi Garba. The other members were Saaudatu Sani (Kaduna), Fatima Rasaki (Ekiti), Nnenna Ukeje (Abia) Elizabeth Ogbaga (Ebonyi) and Halima Bodurin (Plateau).

Mrs. Usman condemned the killing of Miss Ushang while serving the nation and demanded the prosecution of the perpetrators of the act. She said the condition of women in the country demands urgent attention from the lawmakers, especially in the area of making laws that could protect women.

Violence against women

Mrs. Mahdi called for the passage of the bill on Violence Against Women (VAW) because, according to her, violence against women is happening on daily basis. “We are here to say all of us, citizens of this country, matter,” she said.

Director of IPAS Ejike Oji regretted the prevalent assault on women in the country, saying “Our women are dying, our women are raped on daily basis. Our research shows that 49 percent of all women sexually assaulted are of age nine.”

In the two-page petition addressed to the Speaker, Dimeji Bankole, and which they handed over to the lawmakers, the protesters said “The people who inflicted this savage atrocity on Grace Ushang, her family and our collective humanity remain at large. Nothing in the behaviour of the government at the state or federal levels or the police suggests any interest in finding them. The governor of Borno State reportedly offered monetary payment to the family. It is not clear for what. The federal government has said nothing. The National Assembly went through motions requesting the police to investigate her killing and asking the federal government to confer a national award on her. Then what?

“Part of the tragedy of Grace’s story is that she was killed 30 years after the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); 15 years after (the) Beijing World Conference on Women and six years after the adoption and ratification of the African Union Protocol on the Rights of Women, in which governments of the world and the African continent, including Nigeria, solemnly agreed to take integrated measures to prevent and eliminate violence against women. Our successive governments have clearly failed to do this.”

They stated that, in observance of the 16 days of Activism against Gender Violence, holding from November 25 to December 10, there is an opportunity to end this failure on the part of government.

Mrs. Ekaette said, after receiving the petition from Mrs. Uwais and Mr. Odinkalu, that the Senate and the House are sympathetic to Miss Ushang’s case and have discussed the matter, after which they took positions. “We have as much sympathy to this situation and the situation we find ourselves as women,” she said. “God will never allow us such thing to visit us again. (The) National Assembly is in sympathy with you. A Bill was presented to the national assembly in 2002. We (the present session of national assembly) are new; 2007-2011. We will look at it passionately to help us come out of this situation.

“Ushang’s matter was raised in both chambers. We condemned the action and urged that perpetrators should be found. We (women) are human beings. I plead with the younger men here to act as models to other men. (The) National Assembly is with you in this struggle and we will remain with you.”

Voices for Ushang

Binta Masi Garba: “Every Nigerian should be free to be anywhere. Whoever is found guilty of killing Grace should be brought to book. A male member (of the house) brought the motion and everybody supported it. Grace has not died alone. She is sacrificial lamb for others. She will be the last to be so brutalised. The constitution gives rights to everybody; we shouldn’t be biased. We will see the liberation of women come to pass.”

Anslem Odinkalu: “We are here because we want to get the National Assembly to sympathise with the Nigerian people on the killing of Grace. We want to get out of the National Assembly a piece of legislation on violence against women and to get appropriation for effective policing of women. We also want a national monument for all youth corps members who died in active service to the nation, so that we remember them every year. Violence is against the collective will of Nigerian people.”

‘All we are saying’

The protesters have launched a nation-wide campaign to demand several measures from the government. These include:

To take measures to guarantee the safety and personal security of youth corps members and indeed all women and girls who remain vulnerable due to impunity amongst perpetrators in Nigeria;

To pass the Bill on Violence Against Women presented to the House of Representatives since April 2002;

To adopt and pass the Harmonised Bill on Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Bill 2008 presented to the Senate through its Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters in July 2008;

Appropriate funds to facilitate the establishment and equipping of units in all divisional posts of the Nigeria Police Force to enhance the investigation and prosecution of cases of violence against women, thereby enhancing accountability and access to justice for women who suffer abuses in private and public spaces;

Commit a full scale investigation to bring the killers of Grace Ushang to justice.