On Plight Of Women And Children In IDPs Camps

 By Fatima Ali Busuguma

AN overwhelming majority of Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, in Nigeria are women and children. Even though there are varying statistics about the exact figure of internally displaced persons in Northern Nigeria, all sources examined indicated that women and children constitute more than 50 per cent of the internally displaced camps’ formation.

IDPs are people who have been displaced by natural disaster or conflicts from their homes. In Nigeria, conflicts arising from the activities of Boko Haram in the North-East have resulted in threats to lives and properties, together with the death of many and displacement of several people.

Indeed, many women and children are in miserable conditions in some organised and unorganised displaced persons camps world over, including Nigeria. The women and children in these camps are finding it difficult to regain their pre-conflict way of living because of the poor living condition of their new abodes.

In December 2015, Internally Displaced Monitoring Centre, IDMC, estimated that there are almost 2,152,000 IDPs, in Nigeria. The IDPs population is composed of 53 per cent women and 47 per cent men. More than 56 per cent of the total IDPs population are children of which more than half are up to five years old, 42 per cent are adults, while 92 per cent of IDPs were displaced by the insurgency.

The majority of the current IDP population in Nigeria was displaced in 2014 (79 per cent). The IDPs come mainly from Borno (62 per cent), Adamawa (18 per cent) and Yobe (13 per cent). Also, 87 per cent of IDPs live with host families while 13 per cent live in camps (DTM 2015).

During President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit to Malkohi IDPs camp in Yola in the southern part of Adamawa State in November, 2015, the President described the condition of the IDPs as unfortunate. He said: “The children are the worst hit. The situation has caused anxieties, especially when we sleep at night.” Not only that, the Director General of NEMA, Mr Sani Sidi, told the President that “at present, the camp had 80 pregnant women and 175 unaccompanied children”.

In the same vein, Marama, Yusuf and Ojeme in the Vanguard of February 18, 2015, reported that the Boko Haram insurgent IDPs in their respective camps were experiencing “incidents of unwanted pregnancies, rape, child labour/trafficking and sexually transmitted diseases”.

Other national publications  reported that all the 450 deaths caused by malnutrition recorded in 28 Borno State IDPs camps in 2015 were children. According to Mr. Sule Mele (NEMA Executive Director) these children were between age one and five and 209,577 children were screened for various illnesses, including malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and vomiting. He said, about 6,444 severe cases of malnutrition were recorded in the camps, 25,511 have mild to moderate symptoms, while 177,622 among them were not malnourished.

The level of insecurity in the camps in Nigeria is alarming; it’s a situation of running from insecurity to insecurity and that of double jeopardy. Yet to recover from the psychological trauma of loss of families, friends and properties, displaced persons are faced with security challenges coupled with a responsibility to protect themselves in their various camps. The inadequacy of security at the IDPs camps opens them to attacks from terrorists and armed robbers.

In recent times, IDPs camps have severally been attacked by insurgents. In September 2015, a terrorist group, in a suicide mission, attacked members of IDPs camps in Madagali and Yola, killing 12 persons. In one of the attacks, bombs were reported to have been detonated inside a tent at the IDPs camp.

On September 11, 2015, seven people were killed in Malkohi camp near Yola in Adamawa state; on January 31, 2016, at least 86 people were killed in Dalori, some 12 kilometers to Maiduguri; on February 10, 2016, another 80 displaced persons were attacked and killed in an IDPs camp in Dikwa, Borno State which houses about 50,000 displaced persons.

Considering these tough challenges confronting displaced persons and vulnerability of women and children, there is a need for an accelerated deliberate effort by Federal and state governments, “international actors”, non-governmental organisations and the private sector to collaborate in recovering and rehabilitating these displaced women and children at the shortest delay.

Indeed, the present situation of IDP women and children needs an assessment to determine what the agencies and the government can provide. Government has a duty, working with aid agencies and non-governmental organisations, to ensure that basic needs and safety standards are in place.

For sustainability, IDPs women require support that will help improve their self-reliance and reduce their reliance on aids, especially in the area of access to skill training and affordable microcredit for agricultural needs, business start-ups.

Above all, as federal troops make significant progress in the fight against Boko Haram terrorists and peace is gradually been restored in North-East Nigeria, it is imperative to speedily recover and rehabilitate women and children in these camps respectively. This effort will not only integrate them back into the various social structures, it will also eliminate tendencies of social vices that may result from idleness.

*Busuguma, a serving corps member with PRNigeria, wrote from Wuye.