Country Director of Amnesty
International (AI), Osai Ojigho, has said its report detailing how security
forces rape and starve Boko Haram victims was based strictly on eyewitness accounts.
The global rights group had
reported “how the Nigerian military and Civilian Joint Task Force (Civilian
JTF) have separated women from their husbands and confined them in remote
‘satellite camps’ where they have been raped, sometimes in exchange for food.”
The report sparked controversy,
with many Nigerians calling for the head of the international agency.
Reacting, however, Ojigho said
anytime a report was released, the first reaction of the military would be to
defend the institution rather than look into the issues raised.
“We go on mission to these areas,
we meet with the victims themselves. In total, we had 250 interviews.
Forty-eight of those interviews were with women who had recently been released
from Giwa Barracks and it is an Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp.
“It was based on eyewitness and
personal account. Three of those women were at our report launch today
(yesterday); to share their experiences so that they could put a human face to
the story.
“These women exist, they are not
fictitious, they are not trying to tell a story they have not experienced; it
is their personal story,” she added.
Ojigho also said its findings
were not new, and recalled that the National Human Rights Commission, in its
2015 report, “highlighted that there is already pervasive sexual exploitation
going on in the camps.
“They are seeing it more like an
image issue, rather than a rights issue. So, that was why their first reaction
was to say ‘no, we are the good guys, we are not doing anything wrong.’
“By taking that position, they
missed the point that Amnesty International is trying to make; which is that
certain things have happened, people feel aggrieved because these things have
happened. Unfortunately, fingers are pointing to you as the military. In this
particular case, soldiers and Civilian JTF because those are the people who
have perpetrated this crime. So, it means that you, as an institution, need to
sit down and fish out the bag eggs within the institution. I think they are
missing the point.”
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