AEPB to compensate 4 rape victims with 6m each
Nollywood actress and rape survivor, Dorothy Njemanze has said that the ECOWAS Court ruled in her favour and three other rape victims are awarded N6 million each against the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) of the FCT in October.
Njemanze disclosed this in Abuja during amovie screening titled “Silent Tears, an event organised by women’s International League for Peace and Freedom(WILPF) that aside the monetary award, there was a pronouncement that a woman outside her house at night is not a prostitute.
“Ecowas Court has ruled in favour of me against the FCT. Aside awarding me and three other rape victims 6 million naira each, there was a pronouncement that a woman outside her house at night is not a prostitute.
It is unfair to say you are addressing prostitution when it affects women alone, we are sensitizing people on that judgment to give them impetus to rely on the precedent that has been set to get justice”.
Njemanze who is also a Radio presenter and a human rights activist note that violation of women by FCT authority however has scaled down in Abuja
“There was a need to tell the stories of random abduction and gross violation of women in Abuja by the Abuja Environmental Protection Board and the so called task and expose the atrocities that were been done to the people.
Those atrocities are been scaled down but they are still been done and there is need to engage the authorities so that they can stop it completely.
The Abuja Environmental Protection Board is very much on violation patrol and they need to be checked”. She added
Director, Amnesty International Nigeria, Osai Ojigho, said that it has been decided at Ecowas Court that African women no longer have to suffer shame and sigma of violence.
“I was invited here to talk about Dorothy Njemanze’s versus Nigeria case which was held and decided at the Ecowas court in October.
The decision came out and it stated that African women particularly those in west Africa no longer have to suffer the shame and stigma of violence and so, this event is an opportunity to talk a bit more about the bigger frameworks for protecting women’s right in Nigeria and how the women movement can use the Dorothy Njemanze’s case to push and demand for their right”
Speaking on measures in place to encourage victims to speak out, Ojigho said, “Silent Tears” produced by Dorothy Njemanze Foundation (DNF) is a documentary dedicated to help foster an informed dialogue and action on gender based violence
and in particular sexual violence. It encourages women to speak out when they see victims that won the case and were compensated”
Joy Onyesoh, national coordinator, Women Situation Room Nigeria said “we don’t personalize experience but the truth is if we reflect, we will find out that we have all been violated one time or the other but the difference is the courage to speak out”
Mathew Dadiya, Abuja
