A shift towards culture and skills development: A solution for internally displaced persons in Nigeria
Posted: 29 August, 2016 Filed under: Tim Sahliu Braimah | Tags: agriculture, Boko Haram, conflict, corruption, food, humanitarian assistance, IDP camp, IDPs, Independent Corrupt Practices & Other Related Offences Act 2000, internally displaced persons, Kampala Convention, Nigeria, Northern Nigeria, sanitary conditions, security, settlements, terrorism 2 Comments 
Author: Tim Sahliu Braimah
Human Rights Researcher
The ongoing insurgency by Boko Haram and the terrorist activities it has perpetrated since 2009 has led to a huge displacement of people from Northern Nigeria. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, there is an estimated 2,152,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Nigeria. While there is no international binding instrument for IDPs, Nigeria is a signatory to the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala Convention). Nigeria ratified the Kampala Convention on 17 April 2012 which means that it has a primary duty and responsibility to provide protection and humanitarian assistance to IDPs within Nigeria.[1] Irrespective of this ratification, Nigeria’s treatment of IDPs remains poor. According to reports, some challenges IDPs face in camps include inconsistent and poor feeding, poor sanitary conditions, and a lack of proper medical conditions and security.[2]
Nigerian schoolgirl kidnappings not just an act of terrorism
Posted: 19 May, 2014 Filed under: Karen Stefiszyn | Tags: #bringbackourgirls, African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, Bok Haram, criminal law, gender-based violence, kidnapping, militant, Nigeria, Northern Nigeria, patriarchal society, Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, school girls, terrorism, UNICEF Leave a comment
Author: Karen Stefiszyn
Programme Manager: Gender Unit, Centre for Human Rights
The kidnapping by Boko Haram of over 200 school girls in Northern Nigeria is an act of gender based violence for which not only Boko Haram is responsible, but also the Nigerian government. Indeed the militant group has carried out atrocities against boys and men that are equally deplorable, however, in this instance it is not by chance that Boko Haram kidnapped girls. They were targeted because they are girls.
The leader of Boko Haram said in a video shortly after the kidnapping that he would sell the girls in the market. His statement is reflective of an exceptional disdain for girls, which did not exist in isolation, but within a patriarchal society where harmful stereotypes perpetuate girls’ inferiority and enable violence against women to be an accepted norm. Amnesty International has reported that up to two thirds of Nigerian women may have experienced violence in the home by an intimate partner. While domestic violence differs in nature from the kidnapping of over 200 school girls, the common thread is the context within which the acts occur; in a society which does not accord women equal value and provides the structural conditions whereby a girl or woman can be abused in the home or kidnapped and threatened to be sold in the market.
AfricLaw 