{"id":12812,"date":"2019-03-08T10:53:04","date_gmt":"2019-03-08T02:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=12812"},"modified":"2019-03-08T10:53:06","modified_gmt":"2019-03-08T02:53:06","slug":"nigeria-not-probing-soldiers-alleged-sex-abuse-of-refugees-amnesty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=12812","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria not probing soldiers\u2019 alleged sex abuse of refugees: Amnesty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

LAGOS, March 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) \u2013 The Nigerian government has failed to
investigate the alleged sexual abuse by security forces of thousands of women who have fled Boko Haram jihadists to aid camps around the country, Amnesty International said Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amnesty, in a report coinciding with International Women\u2019s Day, reiterated
allegations that security forces and emergency workers prevent the refugees from leaving the camps in search of food and basic necessities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation leaves the women vulnerable to harassment and sexual
exploitation, the group said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have long documented that women are being made to exchange sex for food and livelihood opportunities by members of the security forces just to
survive and feed their children,\u201d said Osai Ojigho, director of Amnesty
International Nigeria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The women are \u201con the verge of losing hope of ever getting justice,\u201d she
said, criticising a lack of investigation of alleged abuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amnesty had already accused the Nigerian army, in a May 2018 report, of
sexually abusing civilians in its fight against Boko Haram, raping women and girls in refugee camps in the northeast of the country in exchange for food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report titled \u201cThey Betrayed Us\u201d was based on more than 250 interviews of women living in aid camps in Borno \u2014 the state most affected by the insurgency\u2013 with many alleging rape by soldiers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thousands of men were arbitrarily detained or disappeared as they fled
fighting in late 2015, the report said, with many women unsure whether their husbands and sons were dead or alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The army vehemently denied the accusations, and have since described the
rights group as an \u201cenemy of Nigeria\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nigeria\u2019s parliament vowed to investigate the report\u2019s findings, which
documented patterns of rape, starvation and arbitrary detention by military and aid officials in the northeast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the statement released Friday, Ojigho said authorities had failed to
help detainees\u2019 family members to obtain information on their whereabouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe denial of information to those who approached the military for
information has caused mental suffering that constitutes ill-treatment under international human rights law,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A decade since the start of Boko Haram\u2019s insurgency, much of the besieged
northeastern region of Nigeria is still in crisis, with some 1.8 million
people displaced and reliant on food and humanitarian assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conflict has claimed at least 27,000 lives. — NNN-AGENCIES
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LAGOS, March 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) \u2013 The Nigerian government has failed toinvestigate the alleged sexual abuse by security forces of thousands of women who have fled Boko Haram jihadists to aid camps around the country, Amnesty International said Friday. Amnesty, in a report coinciding with International Women\u2019s Day, reiteratedallegations that security forces and emergency workers prevent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[213],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12812"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12812\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}