Nigeria urged to ban chaining the mentally ill

An international rights group has called the Nigerian government to ban chaining as it condemned the "terrible" abuse faced by thousands of people with mental health conditions across the country.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a reportpublished on Monday that detention, chaining and violent treatment of mental health patients was pervasive in the country "in many settings, including state hospitals, rehabilitation centres, traditional healing centres, and both Christian and Islamic faith-based facilities".

"People with mental health conditions should be supported and provided with effective services in their communities, not chained and abused," said Emina Cerimovic, senior disability rights researcher at HRW.

"People with mental health conditions find themselves in chains in various places in Nigeria, subject to years of unimaginable hardship and abuse," she said.

Home to some 200 million people, Nigeria is the seventh most populous country in the world. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one in four Nigerians - some 50 million people - are suffering from some sort of mental illness.

WHO says Nigeria has Africa's highest rate of depression, and ranks fifth in the world in the frequency of suicide. There are less than 150 psychiatrists in the county and WHO estimates that fewer than 10 percent of mentally ill Nigerians have access to the care they need.

Abuse victims

The HRW report came days after Nigerian police rescued nearly 259 young people from an Islamic rehabilitation centre in the southwestern city of Ibadan.

Many captives have said they were physically and sexually abused and chained up to prevent them from escaping.

It brought the total number of people released from abusive institutions in the country since September to nearly 1,500.

At the time, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said in a statement that "no responsible democratic government would tolerate the existence of the torture chambers and physical abuses of inmates in the name of rehabilitation of the victims".

But HRW criticised the government for failing to acknowledge that this abuse was rife in government-run facilities too.

The rights group said it visited 28 facilities providing mental healthcare in eight Nigerian states and the federal capital territory between August 2018 and September 2019.

It found that people with actual or perceived mental health conditions, including children, were placed in facilities without their consent, usually by relatives.

HRW said in some cases, police arrest people with actual or perceived mental health conditions and send them to state-run rehabilitation centres.

"Once there, many are shackled with iron chains, around one or both ankles, to heavy objects or to other detainees, in some cases for months or years," the report said.

"They cannot leave, are often confined in overcrowded, unhygienic conditions, and are sometimes forced to sleep, eat, and defecate within the same confined place," it said. "Many are physically and emotionally abused as well as forced to take treatments."

Deep wounds

According to HRW, adults and children in some Islamic rehabilitation centres reported being whipped, causing deep wounds.

People in Christian healing centres and churches described being denied food for up to three days at a time, which staff characterised as "fasting" for "treatment" purposes, the group said.

In many of the traditional and religious rehabilitation centres visited by HRW, staff forced people with mental health conditions, including children, to eat or drink herbs, in some cases with staff pinning people down to make them swallow.

The report said in psychiatric hospitals and state-run rehabilitation centres, staff forcibly administered medication, while some staff admitted to administering electroconvulsive therapy to patients without their consent.

The rights group called on the Nigerian government to "urgently investigate" the facilities and "prioritise the development of quality, accessible, and affordable community-based mental health services".

Al Jazeera

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Nigerian 'sex slavery' ring goes on trial in France

Twenty-four suspected members of a sex trafficking ring accused of forcing Nigerian women into prostitution in France go on trial Wednesday (Nov 6), the latest case to highlight the growing use of Nigerian migrants as sex slaves in Europe.

Nigeria was the main country of origin of the migrants arriving across the Mediterranean to Italy in 2016 and 2017, though their numbers have since dropped.

Many of the arrivals were women and girls lured to Europe with false promises of jobs as hairdressers or seamstresses, only to find themselves selling sex on arrival to repay their debts.

Nigerians now outnumber Chinese or Eastern European sex workers on the streets of France and some other European countries.

Last year, 15 members of a Paris-based female-led pimping ring known as the "Authentic Sisters" were sentenced to up to 11 years in prison for forcing girls into sex slavery in France.

Many were themselves former trafficking victims-turned-perpetrators.


Similar gangs have also been dismantled in Italy and Britain.

The investigation in Lyon, where police estimate half the city's sex workers are Nigerian, began after authorities received a tip about a Nigerian pastor accused of exploiting several sex workers who lived in apartments he owned.

The pastor, Stanley Omoregie, has denied the charges, which include aggravated pimping and slavery.

But in the transcript of a conversation submitted to the court, he is heard saying he wanted "those with beautiful bodies, who can be controlled, not those that cause problems".

The prosecution has presented him as the kingpin of a family-based syndicate made up of 10 women and 14 men, including one of Europe's most wanted women, Jessica Edosomwan, accused of recruiting destitute women in Nigeria for the sex trade in Lyon, Nimes and Montpellier.

Edosomwan, who is believed to be on the run in the Benelux countries, Italy or Germany, will be tried in absentia.

FROM PROSTITUTION TO PIMPING

The UN has estimated that 80 percent of young Nigerian women arriving in Italy - their first port of call in Europe - are already in the clutches of prostitution networks, or quickly fall under their control.

The accused in Lyon cover the entire gamut of sex trafficking activities, from iron-fisted "madams" and violent pimps as well as drivers of the vans in which the women perform sexual acts, and those tasked with laundering the proceeds of the trafficking.

Prosecutors estimate that 17 alleged victims, aged 17 to 38, made up to 150,000 euros (US$166,000) a month for the syndicate, selling sex for as little as 10 euros.

Most of the women come from Benin City, capital of Nigeria's southern Edo State, a human trafficking hotbed with a long history of dispatching women and men to Europe to earn money to send back home.

Many told investigators they had taken part in "juju" or black magic rituals before leaving Nigeria, during which they promised to repay the money they owed for their passage to Europe.

Many of the woman took the perilous migrant trail across the Sahara Desert to Libya and then across the Mediterranean to Italy before winding up in Lyon.

Among the accused is a 28-year-old former prostitute who was herself released from sex slavery after paying off her debts and who in turn brought over another young woman from Nigeria.

Months of police wiretaps and surveillance led to the arrest of the suspects between September 2017 and January 2018.

They risk 10 years in jail if convicted.

CNA

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259 released from illegal detention in Nigerian mosque

Nigerian police have rescued 259 captives from an illegal detention centre in a mosque in Ibadan, in the south-western state of Oyo.

The owner of the facility and eight others have been arrested, according to local media.

Conditions at the mosque were inhumane, Mr Shina Olukolu, state commissioner of police, told the Punch newspaper.

In the past month, more than 1,000 people have been rescued from similar institutions in Nigeria.

Local police raided the centre on Monday evening after a tip-off from a 17-year-old who had escaped from a similar centre in the area.

Some of the victims reportedly told police they had been held there for years.

This is the latest raid in Nigeria's crackdown on "rehabilitation schools" for drug addicts, troublesome children and people who have committed petty crimes.

Officials have likened the facilities to torture centres, and have vowed to close them down.

People rescued from similar institutions over the past month have reported physical and sexual abuse.

Lawal Ahmed was rescued from a rehabilitation centre earlier in October. He told the BBC that beatings and abuse were commonplace.

He said: "They make a cover story and say they are teaching us. They are not teaching us for the sake of God. Everything we are doing is by force and punishment.

"Whoever tells you they are performing prayers here for the sake of God, they are lying."

BBC

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Hundreds freed from torture house in Nigeria

Video - Fire breaks out in lagos market

Nigerian firefighters battled a large fire that broke out of a five-story building surrounding a popular market in Central Lagos on Tuesday. Thick black smoke filled the air as residents threw what belongings they could from the building, while some stood on the rooftops using small buckets of water in an attempt to stop the spread. The fire started in the morning and became a major blaze by midday. Officials have not yet said if any people were injured in the fire or commented on the cause of the blaze.

Nollywood movie Lionheart disqualified from Oscars

 The organisers of the Oscars have disqualified Nigeria's first-ever entry for consideration in the International Feature Film category because it has too much dialogue in English, according to reports.

The disqualification of Lionheart - directed by and starring Genevieve Nnaji, one of the biggest stars in the Nigerian film industry widely known as Nollywood - was conveyed in an email to voters for the category, The Wrap reported on Monday.

According to the rules by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, "an international film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (defined as over 40 minutes) produced outside the United States of America with a predominantly non-English dialogue track."

Lionheart has just under 12 minutes of dialogue that is in the Igbo language, while the rest of the 95-minute feature is in English, according to Hollywood Reporter.

The movie was scheduled to be screened to voters for the category, formerly known as best foreign language film, on Wednesday.
'Proudly Nigerian'

Lionheart, in which Nnaji plays Adaeze, a woman who tries to keep her family's transportation business afloat after her father suffers a heart attack, is currently streaming on Netflix.

Nnaji took to Twitter to express her disapproval of the Academy's decision.

Filmmaker Ava Durnay also criticised the Academy in a Twitter post.

"You disqualified Nigeria's first-ever submission for Best International Feature because its in English. But English is the official language of Nigeria. Are you barring this country from ever competing for an Oscar in its official language?"

Many others also took to social media to comment on the Academy's move.

Al Jazeera

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