By Samuel Oluwole Ogundele
Domestic abuse is one of the challenges being faced by humans down the ages. No society can completely eradicate it. However, the monster can be substantially tamed by good governance and education as if wisdom matters. Domestic violence is a violation of the fundamental human rights of people basically at the family level. This involves children, wives, husbands, close neighbours, and parents among others.
It cuts across all socio-economic strata. But it appears that the monster is much more common among people on the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder, at least in Nigeria. One of the commonalities of domestic abuse across the globe especially in the past, was the belief that wife beating or battering was a good behavioural trait, since a husband had authority over his wife like a personal property. Domestic violence includes murder, spiritual harassment (a lack of freedom of religion), marital rape, economic abuse, female genital mutilation, and acid throwing.
Most legal systems around the world once supported this barbaric act. United Kingdom, Germany, France, and the US were involved prior to the mid-1800s when the winds of change began to blow through the global landscape. Tennessee was the first state in the US to outlaw wife battering in 1850. By the 1870s, this change had reached most parts of the country (US). Similarly, by 1878, the United Kingdom had fully rejected several facets of domestic abuse/violence especially wife beating. This transformation is a reflection of the dynamic nature of culture.
But painfully, this anti-social, primordial behaviour remains a prevalent practice in Nigeria up to now. One of the reasons for this is that ours is a patriarchal society. This leads to a devaluation of women’s worth. The husband is a superman with an egotistic mind-set. Many societies especially in the Asian world are also at this stage of socio-economic formation comparable to savagery. Thus, for example, more than 500 men set fire on their wives between 1994 and 1997 in Pakistan. Several cases led to spousal murders. The usual offence of these unlucky women was that they served their husbands over-cooked or over-salted meals.
In Nigeria, causes of domestic violence include alcohol abuse, dysfunctional family background, material poverty and genetic as well as psychological disorders. According to reports from CLEEN Foundation, one out of three women in Nigeria is a victim of domestic abuse, regardless of the level of her education and that of the spouse. Men are also occasionally abused by their overbearing wives. Such cases are usually under-reported or not reported at all, due to the social stigma attached to it. Pregnant women are not spared, sometimes leading to pre-mature births, low birth weight, and miscarriage. In this connection, the concept of cultural relativism cannot be wished away in the scheme of things. Values, value systems, and standards of cultures are space-and time-bound. Therefore, each culture has to be respected without undermining the issues of advanced morality and legality. Thus, for example, wife battering among the Tiv of Benue State is a method of showing affection to a wife. Beating has the capacity to turn her into a better person. Consequently, an application of some hermeneutical principles is of the essence. For instance, beating one’s wife for the purpose of correction is legal and moral in Northern Nigeria. This is embedded in Section 55(1)(d) of the Penal Code. Is this an exercise in cultural collision-northernisation versus Westernisation?
The government needs to do much more in this direction. Despite the passage into law, of the Violence against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act of 2015, to curb gender-determined abuse, violations of fundamental human rights continue unabated in the country. The above statement derives from several surveys conducted at different times and locations by the Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in Nigeria. Under reporting and/or non-reporting of cases remain(s) a big challenge. Many wives and other abused persons believe that such a matter should be carefully managed at the family level, understandably because of the stigma attached to being divorced, in most societies in Nigeria. Reporting to the Police or some of the Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) is almost a taboo. However, reporting marital cases to Muslim and/or Christian clerics has to be done with a great deal of caution. This is because an innocent spouse may be moving out of the frying pan into the fire. It is no longer news, that our contemporary Nigerian space is heavily polluted by many fake religious leaders. There are wolves around in sheep’s clothing.
Given this scenario, most abused women report to the husbands’ families or their own families. Occasionally, these women keep the experiences to themselves, of course, at their peril. This is because such a situation, can lead to stress disorders with an array of debilitating effects. Cases of economic abuse are on the increase due largely to high rates of unemployment and under-employment in today’s Nigeria. Some wives start getting involved in illicit love affairs in order to survive. Such infidelities are sometimes known to the husbands, who resort to violence and/or murder. In certain instances, the wife is the bread winner for the nuclear family. The stress makes her highly irritable. A family quarrel on a regular basis becomes inevitable. Children growing up in this kind of social environment are most probably going to be a menace to society.
Such male children usually exhibit dysregulated aggressive behaviour while the female ones, see prostitution as a normal coping strategy. These young children from troubled homes, are sometime sent to relatives and/or friends as domestic assistants. This is a good example of child abuse with numerous ugly consequences like rape, pornography, and hawking products from door to door. Some of them later become victims of child trafficking. Again, economic hardships have thoroughly dehumanised many parents among other categories of Nigerians, who now sell off their young children like farm produce. Local industrialisation has to occupy centre stage in the scheme of things. After approximately 60 years of political independence from the British Colonial government, Nigeria remains a shameless crawler. Job opportunities are shrinking rapidly in the face of an ever-increasing human population, without the capacity to turn the abundant local natural resources into wealth for the citizens.
The current situation is worsened considerably, by the unprecedented upheavals in the national security system. Nigeria has the problem of acute food shortages to grapple with. This has the capacity to increase the rate of domestic abuse. A lot of innocents have been mowed down and more people are still being wasted as wrecking spree goes on unabated. Without mincing words or playing smelly politics, Nigeria has a serious problem of rudderless-ness to contend with. The unending Boko Haram insurgency coupled with the seeming contradiction of the military in dealing decisively with this monster, is one of the greatest tragedies and absurdities of our times. Empty rhetoric is no longer an option, in this kind of scenario, where the lives of Nigerians are on a par with those of chickens.
- Prof Ogundele writes from University of Ibadan.
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