How substance abuse is escalating violence, rape in Sauka community

In this report, DOOSUUR IWAMBE examines how use of narcotics is escalating rape and other forms of violence against women and girls in Sauka community.

Experts describe Gender Based Violence, (GBV as acts or threats of sexual, physical or psychological violence committed because of gender norms and stereotypes.

Sauka, a community located along Lugbe, one of the satellite towns in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, currently has a population of over 5000 people.

Despite the presence of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Nigerian Immigration Service Headquarters, the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS), and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), there is a high prevalence of substance abuse among youths in the community.

The locality has been witnessing increasing cases of substance abuse including children of about 10 years.

Even though the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and other government agencies have been putting g in efforts to curb the menace pd substance abuse, the area has remained a beehive of criminal activities perpetrated by both male and female addicts.

The physical, psychological, social and economic consequences of this deviance are huge and disturbing.

Young people who persistently abuse substances in the community often experience an array of problems, including involvement in social vices such as stealing, bullying, secret cult activities.

Sadly consumption of illicit substances, also affects family members, community and the entire society adversely.

Speaking with the The Daily Times through the help of an interpreter, the Aguma of Sauka village, Chief Mal Yusuf Magaji attributed the rise in rape cases, violence against women and other social vices currently affecting the community to abuse of narcotics.

According to him, once these young people are under the influence, they go about raping women and girls around.

“This vice is therefore worsening violence against women and girls. It is a very big problem affecting this community.

I will not say that the mode of dressing is one of the factors because in the past, our men and women use leaves to cover themselves up and we interacted easily without having rape issues.

‘However, the case is no longer the same today, as our girls and women are raped even with the modern way of dressing.’

While lamenting the upsurge of substance abuse popularly referred to as ‘Kai-kai’, the Aguma of Sauka village called on parents and wards to always educate their children on the implications of drugs.’’Drug abuse is a major problem confronting this community.

Once the youths are under the influence, they start raping young ladies in the area. There is need for parents to educate their children on the negative impact of drugs.’

On his part, Vincent Boutsa, a surveillance officer with the National Orientation Agency(NOA) attached to the community said ‘youths in the community have found a means of livelihood in selling drugs.’

While lamenting the absence of police posts and other amenities in the community, he said ‘it is frustrating the fight against gender-based violence.’

‘’It is unfortunate that young boys and girls in this community have found a means of livelihood in selling drugs. Their lives in the night here is very hostile. The girls too are not helping matters. There is no moral discipline.’

‘’Our work here is to sensitize them. We do more of a rescue mission by educating them on the need to do away with the old practices like tribal marks, women genital mutilation and child abuse for them to understand that abusing women is a serious offence.

We do more of sensitization on child abuse, rape, wife battering and anywhere we see the old practices meted on women and girls, we do not spare you’’.

While calling on government to come to their aid, he said that lack of police post in the community was frustrating the fight against crime in the community.

“Sometimes when we arrest some of these people and take them to the station, the police free them and when they come back, we become their target.

“We are calling on government to build a police post, good hospitals and schools for us. Once these are closer to us, it will go a long way in solving some of the issues confronting us here’’, he added.

Female related violence has been a major problem in Nigeria. In a lot of cases, it involves young girls who are raped by people they trust. If they become pregnant, it fills them with fear and shame, and two or three months may go by without them telling anyone.

In some cases, they might try to use an unsafe method to end the pregnancy. Some gender activists said the slow dispensation of justice delayed speedy trial of sexual violence offenders.

They noted that the development has stalled progress in eliminating gender-based violence, as most offenders are not being sanctioned to serve as detriment to others.

According to the Desk Officer, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Sexual and Gender Based Violence Response, Ngozi Ike, out of the 444 reported cases of sexual offences in Nigeria, only one conviction had been secured this year.

Speaking during a four-day media dialogue on Ethical Reporting and Advocacy to Eliminate Violence against Women and girls in the FCT, organized by Spotlight Initiative Nigeria, she said, it was not good enough.

She therefore called for the establishment of special courts to hasten trial of such cases. “We lack special courts in Nigeria to hear such delicate cases. When you take these cases to the regular courts, they linger for a long period of time and this is not good at all.

“If we can push for the establishment of special courts that will preside over sexual and domestic violence cases, it will give justice to survivors.

“We did it during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and within a short period of time, mobile courts were set up to try violators of the COVID-19 guidelines”.

Also, Protection Officer, United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, Tochie Odele, in her presentation said, about 30 percent of girls who have experienced sexual violence in Nigeria before the age of 15 years.

She said one in four girls had experienced sexual violence , which according to her is now worse because of the coronavirus restrictions.

She lamented that it was quite unfortunate that 19 percent of girls often get are married before they get to the age of 15 years old.

Majority of these girls , she said, experience violence at home and it is rarely an isolated incident. Most of the girls that are raped are people that are either close to them or well known to them.

According to her, most of the girls do not report their abuse because they are scared of causing problems and stigmatization.

She said girls with disabilities are twice likely to experience violence of any form.

Odele, decried non-signing of Child Right Acts, by 13 states out of 36 states in Nigeria, saying ‘this has made violence against girls worse.’

She lamented that most of the states that are yet to sign the Child Right Acts are in the northern part of Nigeria

In his welcome remarks , Chief Child Protector, UNICEF, Ibrahim Sesay, said as media practitioners you need to have strategic partnership on issues surrounding women and girls with stakeholders.

“To move and ascertain those results we have committed some funds globally to mitigate issues on violence against women and girls.

“The voice of the media is powerful but it has to be ethical in nature, privacy of survival. We must not expose the images of survival that could embarrass or re-victimize them”, he noted.