The House of Representatives, Wednesday passed for second reading, a Bill for an Act to make Provision for the Prohibition of Stigmatization of Persons who are Victims of Insurgency or Militancy from Re-integration with the Community.
Sponsored by Ben Igbaka (PDP, Delta), the Bill provides for the Prosecution and Punishment of any Person or Group of Persons who stigmatize such Victims with a view to uphold and Protect their Fundamental Rights to Dignity and Free Association as Provided in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999.
In a lead debate on the Bill, Igbakpa said stigmatization against victims of insurgency and militancy should be an offence with prescribed terms of imprisonment as could be found in the Bill.
He listed the categories of victims of insurgency as direct casualties such as raped women, molested men, and internally displaced persons.
According to him, the implications of stigmatization are direct public embarrassment, social disorientation, solitude, compromised sense of identity, and sometimes suicide.
Igbaka lamented that instead of getting embarrased and fully integrated back to society, the victims further get estranged from same and urged other lawmakers to provide necessary legal framework to safeguard and protect them as vulnerable members of society.
“Stigmatization is a damaging social phenomenon, potent enough to severely alter the existential realities of victims.
By this proposed law, stigmatization of victims of insurgency should go beyond mere violation of fundamental right against discrimination as guaranteed under section 42 of the 1999 Constitution. It should also now go beyond mere violation of the right to dignity of the human person under section 34 of the extant Constitution.”
“It is now becoming increasingly difficult for victims of insurgency meted with rape or other inhumane treatment, to speak up and narrate their sordid experiences for fear of being labelled, shamed and stigmatised. So, they hold back information, in order that the divulgence of the graphic details may not be used against them in the present or in future. They literally suffer in silence therefore.
“Again, by closing up, victims deny government a veritable data base of information by which to precisely access the true situation of things, as well as the best metric to address the problem of insurgency. Which is the more reason we must all support this law because a crucial solution to the problem of insurgency today, is in the gathering of critical intelligence.
“By far the category of victims of insurgency and militancy who suffer stigmatization the most, are the internally displaced persons. Having endured the indignity of social dislocation in their own country, internally displaced persons go through very challenging circumstances in a bid to get reintegrated back into society.
“With about 1.7 million people displaced in Borno State alone, the IDPs are only meant to provide makeshift and temporary accommodation for victims of insurgency. They must at some point return back to their real homes and neighbourhood”.
James Kwen, Abuja
