Amnesty International has documented torture, unlawful detention and sexual abuse of children escaping Boko Haram in the Northeast
At least 10,000 people, including many children, have died in military detention during the conflict
UK funding a flawed ‘rehabilitation’ centre – full investigation needed into deaths at the site
‘This must serve as an urgent warning to the UK Government currently supporting a military abusing the very people it’s meant to be protecting’ – Kate Allen
Nigeria must urgently address its failure to protect and provide education to an entire generation of children in the Northeast, a region devastated by years of Boko Haram atrocities and gross violations by the military, Amnesty International warned today in a chilling new report.
The 91-page report, ‘We dried our tears’: Addressing the toll on children of Northeast Nigeria’s conflict, examines how the military’s widespread unlawful detention and torture have compounded the suffering of children from Borno and Adamawa states who faced war crimes and crimes against humanity at the hands of Boko Haram.
It also reveals how international donors including the UK have bankrolled a flawed programme that claims to reintegrate former alleged fighters, but which overwhelmingly amounts to unlawful detention of children and adults.
Joanne Mariner, Acting Director of Crisis Response at Amnesty International, said:
“The past decade of bitter conflict between Nigeria’s military and Boko Haram has been an assault on childhood itself in Northeast Nigeria. The Nigerian authorities risk creating a lost generation unless they urgently address how the war has targeted and traumatised thousands of children.
“Boko Haram has repeatedly attacked schools and abducted large numbers of children as soldiers or ‘wives’, among other atrocities.
“The Nigerian military’s treatment of those who escape such brutality has also been appalling. From mass, unlawful detention in inhumane conditions, to meting out beatings and torture and allowing sexual abuse by adult inmates – it defies belief that children anywhere would be so grievously harmed by the very authorities charged with their protection.”
Between November 2019 and April 2020, Amnesty interviewed more than 230 people affected by the conflict, including 119 who were children when they suffered serious crimes at the hands of Boko Haram, the Nigerian military, or both. This included 48 children held in military detention for months or years, as well as 22 adults who had been detained with children.
Boko Haram’s brutality
Children have been among those most impacted by Boko Haram’s string of atrocities carried out over large swathes of Northeast Nigeria for nearly a decade. The armed group’s classic tactics have included attacks on schools, widespread abductions, recruitment and use of child soldiers, and forced marriage of girls and young women, which all constitute crimes under international law.
The scale of abductions has often been underestimated and appears to run into the thousands. Boko Haram continues to force parents to hand over boys and girls, under threat of death. It continues to forcibly “marry” girls and young women. And it continues to murder people who try to escape.
Children in areas under Boko Haram control have been subjected to torture, including floggings and other beatings, as well as forced to watch public executions and other brutal punishments.
A 17-year-old girl who escaped Boko Haram after being abducted and held in captivity for four years described life in the Sambisa forest: “[My] wicked ‘husband’ always beat me… My daily activities included praying, cooking if there was food, [and] going for Quranic lessons. No movement was allowed, and no visiting friends. It was a terrible experience, and I witnessed different punishments, from shooting to stoning to lashing.”
She, and most other former child “wives” interviewed — including some who returned with children born during captivity — had received little or no assistance in returning to school, starting livelihoods, or accessing psychosocial support.
Thousands, including children, held in military detention
Children who escape Boko Haram territory face a raft of violations by the Nigerian authorities, including crimes under international law. At best, they end up displaced, struggling for survival and with little or no access to education. At worst, they are arbitrarily detained for years in military barracks, in conditions amounting to torture or other ill-treatment.
The UN told Amnesty it has verified the release of 2,879 children from military detention since 2015, although it previously cited a higher figure of children detained between 2013 and 2019. These statistics are likely to be a vast underestimate, and the UN has said its access to military detention is restricted so it cannot provide the actual number of children detained in the context of the conflict.
Most of these detentions are unlawful; children are never charged or prosecuted for any crime and are denied the rights to access a lawyer, appear before a judge, or communicate with their families. The widespread unlawful detentions may amount to a crime against humanity.
Almost everyone fleeing Boko Haram territory, including children, is “screened” by the military and Civilian Joint Task Force – a process that, for many, involves torture until the person “confesses” to affiliation with Boko Haram. Alleged Boko Haram members and supporters are transferred and held - often for months or years - in squalid conditions in detention centres including Giwa Barracks in Maiduguri and the Kainji military base in Niger State.
Conditions so severe they amount to torture
Every former detainee interviewed offered consistent descriptions of the conditions: extreme overcrowding; a lack of ventilation amid stifling heat; parasites everywhere; and urine and faeces on the floor, because of the lack of toilets. Although there have been some improvements in recent years, many former detainees, including children, also faced grossly inadequate access to water, food, and health care.
Tens of thousands of detainees have been held in these conditions, which are so extreme that they constitute the war crime of torture. Many children continue to be held in such conditions, even after mass releases in late 2019 and early 2020. Amnesty estimates that at least 10,000 people, including many children, have died in detention during the conflict.
A 14-year-old boy whom Boko Haram abducted as a young child before he fled and was placed in detention by the Nigerian military, said: “The conditions in Giwa are horrible. They could make you die. There’s no place to lie down… It’s hot, all your clothes were wet, like they put you in a river… Up to now, nobody has told me why I was taken there, what I did, why I was in detention. I wonder, why did I run from [Boko Haram]?”
UK support to the Nigerian military and unsafe detention centres
The UK Government is supporting the Nigerian armed forces to counter the threat from Boko Haram through British military training and by providing operational guidance and advice.
As part of this support, the UK is one the international donors (including the USA and EU), providing millions of dollars to Operation Safe Corridor – a military-run detention centre set up in 2016 with the aim of ‘de-radicalising and rehabilitating’ alleged Boko Haram fighters or supporters.
Whilst conditions are better at the Safe Corridor site than elsewhere in military detention, and former detainees spoke positively about the psychosocial support and adult education there, Amnesty has documented a number of human rights violations at the site, including:
Most of the men and boys there have not been informed of any legal basis for their detention and still lack access to lawyers or courts to contest it. Their promised six-month stay has in some cases extended to 19 months, during which time they are deprived of liberty and under constant armed guard.
Former detainees there told Amnesty that medical care was sorely lacking. At least seven detainees have died, many, if not all, after receiving inadequate medical care. The Nigerian authorities did not even notify their families – they were informed by released detainees instead.
A vocational training programme that is part of Safe Corridor may amount to forced labour, since most detainees, if not all, have never been convicted of any crime and make everything from shoes to soap to furniture for no pay.
The programme also subjects some detainees to unsafe work conditions. Some detainees suffered serious injuries to their hands after being made to work with caustic soda, a highly corrosive substance, without protective equipment. “The caustic soda is dangerous. If it touches your body, it will remove the flesh,” said a 61-year old former detainee.
Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty UK, said:
“Amnesty’s investigations show the brutal and inhumane treatment of many children by the Nigerian military.
“This must serve as an urgent warning to the UK Government and the British forces currently supporting a military abusing the very people it’s meant to be protecting.
“The UK’s support of a military-run detention centre that is unlawfully imprisoning people, including children, and subjecting them to unsafe conditions is particularly worrying – continued support for the programme must be conditioned on the Nigerian authorities undertaking a full investigation into deaths in the facility and taking steps to ensure the military respects children’s rights.
“The priority must be supporting victims of Boko Haram. The UK Government must work with the Nigerian authorities to ensure that the military is protecting the population, and that absolutely no UK support is contributing to the vile abuses taking place in the context of the conflict.”
Amnesty International UK
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Trafficked Nigerian women rescued from Lebanon
Fifty trafficked Nigerian women have been rescued from Lebanon and returned home, Nigeria's foreign minister says.
They have all been placed in quarantine following their arrival on Sunday as a precaution against coronavirus.
The country's anti-trafficking agency will interview them about their experiences after their isolation ends.
Last month, a Nigerian woman working as a maid in Lebanon was rescued after being put up for sale on Facebook for $1,000 (£807).
The UN says thousands of women and girls from Nigeria and other African countries are trafficked every year.
They are often lured away with promises of jobs in Europe or Asia, but usually end up being exploited as domestic maids or forced into prostitution.
Last year, an undercover BBC News Arabic investigation in Kuwait found that domestic workers were being illegally bought and sold online in a booming black market.
Nigeria's Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, tweeted his thanks to the Lebanese authorities for their financial and logistical support in making Sunday's evacuation possible.
A further 19 Nigerians, stranded in Lebanon because of Covid-19 lockdowns, were also repatriated.
Julie Okah-Donli, the head of Nigeria's National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (Naptip), said the hotel where the women were being quarantined was under guard to ensure their protection.
They would be offered ways to rebuild their lives after investigations into their cases, she said.
According to Naptip, at least 20,000 Nigerian girls were trafficked to Mali and forced into prostitution last year.
Ms Okah-Donli said the agency was working with the foreign ministry to repatriate citizens who had been trafficked.
BBC
They have all been placed in quarantine following their arrival on Sunday as a precaution against coronavirus.
The country's anti-trafficking agency will interview them about their experiences after their isolation ends.
Last month, a Nigerian woman working as a maid in Lebanon was rescued after being put up for sale on Facebook for $1,000 (£807).
The UN says thousands of women and girls from Nigeria and other African countries are trafficked every year.
They are often lured away with promises of jobs in Europe or Asia, but usually end up being exploited as domestic maids or forced into prostitution.
Last year, an undercover BBC News Arabic investigation in Kuwait found that domestic workers were being illegally bought and sold online in a booming black market.
Nigeria's Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, tweeted his thanks to the Lebanese authorities for their financial and logistical support in making Sunday's evacuation possible.
A further 19 Nigerians, stranded in Lebanon because of Covid-19 lockdowns, were also repatriated.
Julie Okah-Donli, the head of Nigeria's National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (Naptip), said the hotel where the women were being quarantined was under guard to ensure their protection.
They would be offered ways to rebuild their lives after investigations into their cases, she said.
According to Naptip, at least 20,000 Nigerian girls were trafficked to Mali and forced into prostitution last year.
Ms Okah-Donli said the agency was working with the foreign ministry to repatriate citizens who had been trafficked.
BBC
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
Video - Eid in Nigeria: Outbreak dampens festivities
The Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr at the end of Ramadan is usually a time of celebration in Nigeria. This year, however, many children will not be getting new clothes and gifts. The pandemic has devastated the economy, leaving millions struggling to get by. Al Jazeera's Ahmed Idris reports from Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.
Monday, May 25, 2020
Nigeria’s Economy Boosted by Higher Oil Production
Nigerian economic growth beat estimates in the first quarter as oil production rose to the highest in at least four years.
Gross domestic product expanded 1.87% in the three months through March from a year earlier, compared with growth of 2.55% in the previous quarter, the Abuja-based National Bureau of Statistics said on its website on Monday. The slowdown reflects “the earliest effects of the disruption, particularly on the non-oil economy,” the statistics office said. The median estimate of three economists in a Bloomberg survey was for 0.8% expansion. GDP contracted by 14.27% from the fourth quarter.
While crude prices started dropping in the first quarter due to the tension between some of the world’s biggest producers and the coronavirus outbreak, Nigeria ramped up production to compensate for the fall in income. Oil output rose to 2.07 million barrels a day, compared with 2 million in the fourth quarter and 1.99 million barrels in the first quarter of last year. That’s the highest level since at least the start of 2016.
The oil sector grew by 5.06% from year earlier and the non-oil growth rate dropped to 1.55%, compared with 2.47% a year earlier. Still, the plunge in crude prices will weigh on Africa’s largest economy this year and gross domestic product could contract 3.4% in 2020, the most in at least four decades, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Budget Plans
Oil contributes less than 10% to GDP, but it accounts for half of the government’s income and about 90% of Nigeria’s foreign-exchange earnings. Africa’s biggest crude producer has more than halved the benchmark price in its budget to $25 per barrel for 2020 while keeping spending targets mostly intact, a step which would mean more borrowing to finance the fiscal plans.
Nigeria’s oil revenues declined by 125.5 billion naira ($326 million) in the first quarter, an indication of the headwinds the economy is facing from the coronavirus pandemic and low crude prices, Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed said last week. Without stimulus, the economy could contract by 8.9%, she said.
BNN Bloomberg
Gross domestic product expanded 1.87% in the three months through March from a year earlier, compared with growth of 2.55% in the previous quarter, the Abuja-based National Bureau of Statistics said on its website on Monday. The slowdown reflects “the earliest effects of the disruption, particularly on the non-oil economy,” the statistics office said. The median estimate of three economists in a Bloomberg survey was for 0.8% expansion. GDP contracted by 14.27% from the fourth quarter.
While crude prices started dropping in the first quarter due to the tension between some of the world’s biggest producers and the coronavirus outbreak, Nigeria ramped up production to compensate for the fall in income. Oil output rose to 2.07 million barrels a day, compared with 2 million in the fourth quarter and 1.99 million barrels in the first quarter of last year. That’s the highest level since at least the start of 2016.
The oil sector grew by 5.06% from year earlier and the non-oil growth rate dropped to 1.55%, compared with 2.47% a year earlier. Still, the plunge in crude prices will weigh on Africa’s largest economy this year and gross domestic product could contract 3.4% in 2020, the most in at least four decades, according to the International Monetary Fund.
Budget Plans
Oil contributes less than 10% to GDP, but it accounts for half of the government’s income and about 90% of Nigeria’s foreign-exchange earnings. Africa’s biggest crude producer has more than halved the benchmark price in its budget to $25 per barrel for 2020 while keeping spending targets mostly intact, a step which would mean more borrowing to finance the fiscal plans.
Nigeria’s oil revenues declined by 125.5 billion naira ($326 million) in the first quarter, an indication of the headwinds the economy is facing from the coronavirus pandemic and low crude prices, Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed said last week. Without stimulus, the economy could contract by 8.9%, she said.
BNN Bloomberg
Friday, May 22, 2020
COVID-19 cases in Nigeria exceed 7,000
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Thursday recorded 339 new cases of COVID-19 in the country, bringing the total number of infections in the country to 7,016.
The NCDC disclosed this on its twitter handle on Thursday night. “339 new cases of #COVID19; 139-Lagos 28-Kano 28-Oyo 25-Edo 22-Katsina 18-Kaduna 14-Jigawa 13-Yobe 13-Plateau 11-FCT 8-Gombe 5-Ogun 4-Bauchi 4-Nasarawa 3-Delta 2-Ondo 1-Rivers 1-Adamawa. “7016 total cases of #COVID19 in Nigeria “Discharged: 1907 “Deaths: 211” NCDC also announced that to limit transmission of the virus, the centre is training healthcare workers to practise standard care precautions at all times. The health agency had on Wednesday said that sometimes, COVID-19 test results take longer than 96 hours due to sample transport and other logistics.
“While we work hard to reduce time between sample collection and result notification, please take preventive measures. “Self-isolation is important,” it stated. According to NCDC, the health agency does not own quarantine or treatment centres which are the responsibility of the state governments or relevant teaching hospital. The NCDC said that it only provides guidance on set-up of standard isolation centres, national case management guidelines and training to health workers.
The agency on Wednesday said that since COVID-19 onset, it had proactively provided Nigerians with reliable information on what they know; also through its website- covid19.ncdc.gov.ng. It called on the need for credible scientists in the country to support in dispelling rumours just like the early days of HIV. Meanwhile, the Lagos State Government on Thursday, disclosed that it has spent at least N800 million in conducting 16,000 COVID-19 tests in the state. The state’s Commissioner for Health, Professor. Akin Abayomi stated this, while briefing newsmen on COVID-19 weekly situation report, held in Press Centre, Alausa Secretariat, Ikeja.
Abayomi, while responding to questions from the newsmen, said each COVID-19 test cost between N40,000 to N50,000, while 16,000 tests have been conducted so far fully all expenses paid by the state government. According to him, “We have so far performed 16,000 COVID-19 tests in Lagos, which is much higher than anywhere else in Nigeria. “We are planning to test up to about 1,000 people per day very soon in the next month or two we are going to be ramping up our capacity to test.
“For now the government is providing testing free of charge and the government pays about N40,000 to N50,000 per test. “But as we ramp up our testing we are going to try and use some means of subsidy for the test, either through insurance or through some contributions from donors or from development partners to help us to subsidize the test. “For now the state government is providing COVID-19 testing free of charge and all citizens who need to be tested for COVID-19 either because they are not feeling well or had a close contact can get it done free of charge at any of our COVID-19 testing sites on the four laboratories,” the commissioner said.
Vanguard
The NCDC disclosed this on its twitter handle on Thursday night. “339 new cases of #COVID19; 139-Lagos 28-Kano 28-Oyo 25-Edo 22-Katsina 18-Kaduna 14-Jigawa 13-Yobe 13-Plateau 11-FCT 8-Gombe 5-Ogun 4-Bauchi 4-Nasarawa 3-Delta 2-Ondo 1-Rivers 1-Adamawa. “7016 total cases of #COVID19 in Nigeria “Discharged: 1907 “Deaths: 211” NCDC also announced that to limit transmission of the virus, the centre is training healthcare workers to practise standard care precautions at all times. The health agency had on Wednesday said that sometimes, COVID-19 test results take longer than 96 hours due to sample transport and other logistics.
“While we work hard to reduce time between sample collection and result notification, please take preventive measures. “Self-isolation is important,” it stated. According to NCDC, the health agency does not own quarantine or treatment centres which are the responsibility of the state governments or relevant teaching hospital. The NCDC said that it only provides guidance on set-up of standard isolation centres, national case management guidelines and training to health workers.
The agency on Wednesday said that since COVID-19 onset, it had proactively provided Nigerians with reliable information on what they know; also through its website- covid19.ncdc.gov.ng. It called on the need for credible scientists in the country to support in dispelling rumours just like the early days of HIV. Meanwhile, the Lagos State Government on Thursday, disclosed that it has spent at least N800 million in conducting 16,000 COVID-19 tests in the state. The state’s Commissioner for Health, Professor. Akin Abayomi stated this, while briefing newsmen on COVID-19 weekly situation report, held in Press Centre, Alausa Secretariat, Ikeja.
Abayomi, while responding to questions from the newsmen, said each COVID-19 test cost between N40,000 to N50,000, while 16,000 tests have been conducted so far fully all expenses paid by the state government. According to him, “We have so far performed 16,000 COVID-19 tests in Lagos, which is much higher than anywhere else in Nigeria. “We are planning to test up to about 1,000 people per day very soon in the next month or two we are going to be ramping up our capacity to test.
“For now the government is providing testing free of charge and the government pays about N40,000 to N50,000 per test. “But as we ramp up our testing we are going to try and use some means of subsidy for the test, either through insurance or through some contributions from donors or from development partners to help us to subsidize the test. “For now the state government is providing COVID-19 testing free of charge and all citizens who need to be tested for COVID-19 either because they are not feeling well or had a close contact can get it done free of charge at any of our COVID-19 testing sites on the four laboratories,” the commissioner said.
Vanguard
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