INSECURITY IN NORTH EAST REGION OF NIGERIA: THE PLIGHT OF WOMEN IN THE IDP CAMPS

INSECURITY IN NORT EAST REGION OF NIGERIA: THE PLIGHT OF WOMEN IN THE INTERNALLY DISPLACED (IDP) CAMPS 

North-Eastern part of Nigeria is under siege.  This is as a result of the terrorist activities which is still ongoing and have turned the once peaceful towns into a death trap. Frequent bombings, Kidnapping of school girls and slaughtering of people on daily basis did not only turn most young women to widows but made them flee the town for safety.  In search of a safe place most were rescued and made to stay in the Internally Displaced Camps (IDPS) across the country. On arrival at the camps, many felt they are safe not knowing that is the beginning of another ordeal. 

A visit to any of these camps will make you weep not just for these women whose legs can hardly carry their frail looking bodies but by the suffering of young children, toddlers who die in their numbers in the camps out of malnutrition.  On interviewing them, most out of fear and intimidation by those who are supposed to protect them refuse to speak.  The few who were bold to speak always chorus the same thing:

‘We are hungry and we are forced to trade our bodies for food, We are also molested on daily basis, the pregnant ones die mostly out of malnutrition and minor complications, maternal mortality is very high in this place.‘

Where then lies the security in the IDP camps in Nigeria? As many women there feel they would have been better off in the hands of the terrorist than in the IDP camps where their makeshift tents hardly protect them from rain and their predators. As a woman, the plight of these women made me lend my voice to the call for global peace and security.