Kenneth Ofoma
A 27-year-old woman, Mrs. Chiamaka Okechi, has narrated how her husband attempted to bludgeon her to death with an iron rod in Enugu State.
The mother of eight, from Ezeama Mgbagbuowa in Ezeagu Local Government Area of Enugu State, is presently nursing an injury allegedly inflicted on her estranged husband, Obinwanne Chiafo.
Chiamaka suffered head fractures following the deadly iron rod attack from Chiafo. Chiamaka had entered into a forced marriage at the age of 13 and started giving birth early, leading to her being forced to drop out of school.
Chiamaka has spent 13 years in the marriage, which has been fraught with tales of woes as she has to endure several forms of domestic violence.
She recounted that on August 21, Chiafo came to her house and unleashed terror on her. On that fateful day, he reportedly violently kicked down her door, dragged her on the floor and attacked her.
Chiamaka said: “He pounced on me, kicking and punching me very hard, all over my body. He rained several punches on my chest. I screamed as a result of excruciating pains, but he kept on hitting me and then, he picked an iron rod and hit me on the head, causing severe head injury. It was at that point that he ran away.
“Since the attack, I have been suffering severe pains on my head and chest and I find it difficult to sleep.”
The woman is also afraid of returning home, fearful that her husband will return to carry out his threat to kill her.
She added: “I want WACOL (a Non-Governmental Organisation, Women Aids Collective) and the law enforcement agencies to assist me to arrest this man, because I don’t want to die. I have nobody to run to. Please help me.”
WACOL, which is currently handling her matter, said that Chiamaka was presently living in a mud house, depending on subsistence farming to feed.
New Telegraph learnt that Chiamaka had endured years of torture, physical and emotional abuses from her husband. Chiamaka and Chiafo from the same village as her.
Seeking an end to the constant abuse, the woman ran to the Women House, operated by WACOL, on August 24, 2020. Incidentally, she ran to the place with her bloodied head, where she narrated her experiences.
“The father of my children severely battered me and ejected me from our matrimonial home five years ago," she told WACOL.
Chiafo also took custody of her children.
"She has not been allowed access to these children,” WACOL Communication Officer, Egodi Igwe, told New Telegraph.
According to Igwe, Chiafo married two other women after he evicted Chiamaka, but she never objected, notwithstanding that he still comes around her parents’ house to regularly assault her.
She said: “The victim further revealed that her estranged husband returned in 2019 to ask for forgiveness and she forgave him. Unfortunately, he got her pregnant with their eighth child and then abandoned her again.”
Chiamaka was still bleeding, when Chiafo stormed out, but with an alleged parting shot that he would return to kill her.
Igwe explained that the victim went to a police station at Aguobu Owa, Ezeagu Local Government Area, to report the incident.
“Unfortunately, police asked her to bring money, which she couldn’t afford, hence her coming to WACOL from that far distance to Enugu city, to ask for help,” Igwe added.
At the WACOL office, Chiamaka was received by the founder and Executive Director, Prof. Joy Ngozi Ezeilo.
Ezeilo assured her of WACOL's unflinching support to ensure that she gets justice and treatment for her injury.
As a prelude to other assistance, Ezeilo gave her N10,000 to take care of her immediate needs.
“Under the arrangement, she will also receive medical treatment, free legal aid, counselling and psycho-social support. WACOL legal clinic will also follow up with relevant law enforcement agencies to ensure that the perpetrator is arraigned and properly charged for grievous bodily injury, including murder threat," the communication officer said.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, WACOL has continued to rush to the rescue of battered and abused women.
Mrs. K was one of the women recently saved from threat to life and spousal battery.
Mrs. K reported a case of spousal battery against her husband, Mr. Sunday, from Ikwo Local Government Area of Ebonyi State. Sunday has seven wives.
The victim called on WACOL to intervene in her case and save her from her abusive husband. According to Mrs K, she is the first wife of the man and has five children for the man.
She said her husband had been battering her, and on this particular occasion, he wielded a machete and gave her severe cuts on her hand.
After listening to her narration, WACOL intervened and counselled her. She was also advised to remain in her mother’s house, where she had fled to for safety.
Meanwhile she is already undergoing some medical treatment on WACOL intervention, while the matter has been reported to the Police Gender Office in the state for further investigations, arrest and prosecution of the culprit.
Similarly, WACOL rescued a widow, who had been severely assaulted. The widow, Mrs. Peace from Awkunanaw in Enugu State, lost her husband in January 2020.
According to Peace, she was severely beaten by her husband’s debtor and her mourning cloth torn into pieces at Liberty Estate in Enugu, where she went to reclaim some debts owed to her late husband by an engineer.
WACOL intervened immediately by writing a petition to the police, who are investigating the matter for immediate arrest of the culprit.
WACOL is still following up on the matter and the widow who was in shock was counselled and reassured of the organisation's continuous assistance.
Ezeilo expressed worries over the increasing cases of gender-based violence.
She said: “The rising impunity of violence against women and girls, especially rape, defilement and other forms of domestic violence continues unabated. We live in strange times; to begin with, the Coronavirus that knows no border struck the world unannounced.
"The novel Coronavirus declared by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as a pandemic has caused as we know deaths and morbidity with several hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions infected globally.
"Before COVID-19, it has been acknowledged that violence against women and girls is one of the most surreptitious forms of violation of their human rights. Sexual violence and other forms of torture against women and girls have also been affirmed to be a crime against humanity. The truth is that there is low accountability to violence perpetrated against the female gender.
"Today it is Uwa Omozuwa, Benin, yesterday it was Tina Ezekwe, Lagos, a year before it was Ochanya, Benue and unaccountable others.
"In 2014, it was Chibok girls, Borno, later on Dapchi girls, Yobe and on and on; the list goes until we can count no more. It is not a myth; it has become women’s lives reality. Women’s bodies have become a site of struggle and the personal has become political.”
The truth according to Ezeilo is that there is no safe space for women and girls anymore in Nigeria.
Every second, every minute, every hour, every day, women and girls face disproportionate forms of sexual and gender-based violence in the forms of rape, defilement, trafficking, sexual harassment, wife battery, domestic abuse, female genital cuttings/female circumcision, early and forced marriage, widowhood practices, including denial of inheritance rights, torture, acid attack, abandonment without means of livelihood, denial of custody rights, among others. It is now an epidemic within a pandemic of COVID-19, she said.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), globally, as many as 38 per cent of all murders of women are committed by intimate partners. In addition to intimate partner violence, globally seven per cent of women report having been sexually assaulted by someone other than a partner, although data for non-partner sexual violence are more limited.
Intimate partner and sexual violence are mostly perpetrated by men against women.
No comments:
Post a Comment