People are not really enlightened about human right – Barr Grace

People are not really enlightened about human right – Barr Grace

The human rights family in Plateau has its hands into many pies. In this interview held with Bodurin Kayode, Coordinator of the Commission, Barrister Grace Pam spoke her mind about many things touching on the workings of the agency and humanity at large.

Q: You were in a particular rights case before I came to see you today. How do you cope as a woman handling such sensitive marital issues on the Plateau?

A: We try our best, you see, if I asked a female to handle it, a Christian female for that matter, you know there is that bias already if it touches certain areas and vice versa. What does she know about Islamic marriage or anything? You know we are very religious sensitive here. So I think one of our major challenges would be education, illiteracy or lack of education. People are not really enlightened about human rights. We pride ourselves that we are very educated and we’ve gone to school. But it doesn’t show. When it really comes to these issues of human rights, people are actually very ignorant, they don’t know even when their rights are violated. They don’t know where to report to when their rights are violated. So we have to do a lot of enlightenment. By the grace of God, though we hardly have funding. Funding is the major problem. The private big spenders, they don’t fund us? Rather, they will tell you that you are a government agency, and the government should fund you.

Most Federal institutions like the JOS UNIVERSITY TEACHING HOSPITAL (JUTH) and many others which touch on humanity and the welfare of the people hardly get handshakes from the state governments or private sector. It’s sad some see you people as strangers from another world.

But you know that in JUTH they are even better off than us, because they generate money. You know patients come,in fact when my relation was there, he said, they generate revenue in billions of naira. People troop to JUTH, because they are a bit cheaper than the private hospitals. And then they have more qualified Professors, its the same Professors that go out to open their own private hospitals. So JUTH should not be complaining that much like us we don’t generate nothing, in fact, our complainers come to you and expect that you give them money, transport money to go back. They will come here and ask you even for rent money. Sometimes I will sit here, maybe I will have just N2000 and I will go home with nothing…….laughter. Recently, one Chief came here. He thought that when they said Human Rights Commission, it meant that when they come, you give them at least something before they depart. You have to be practical when with small, small monies like that. So sometimes when they say its complains, I will say okay, can they see somebody with the complain, when they finish writing it they can bring it to me. Because if you allow everybody to enter here, you can’t satisfy all of them……..General laughter. 

Q: Can you roll out a couple of what you think were satisfactory achievements which touched the life of humanity on the Plateau since you started working here?

A: I think, some of the achievements came through our campaigns, the campaigns and enlightenment we do. We have being able to get the traditional rulers in Plateau State to key into our programs. Like the Gbong Gwom Jos, when we visited him. He gave us his words and actually invited all the Chiefs under him, to hear us out. And they have taken our programmes as theirs. All the Chiefs under him and we have had talks with them trying to enlighten them on the need to ensure that their people know about this human rights and come and report human rights violations etc. Why did we do that? It was because we noticed that some particular human rights violations are just taken for granted, you know they think some of it is a traditional thing, so it is not wrong. You know you should tread in a traditional way. A girl, an underage child is raped and they say its our tradition. When such things happen this is what we do maybe kill a goat, maybe the perpetrator will bring a goat they will kill it and they will give him a few strokes of the cane in the presence of everybody in the village square and that is enough punishment for him. And then he is let to go scout free. The little girl may not even taste from the goat meat and her life is already ruined. She is ruined for life psychologically and physically and even health wise. The girl is already affected you know for life and you tell us that this is how you treat it. So some of those issues like women, inheritance are as they still practice those things that a woman cannot inherit like the male, the girl child cannot inherit anything. Some of them are still not sending the girl to school. Theses are some of those issues that were coming up and we are getting complains around those places and around those things. Even branding people as witches, small girls and old women. These are the two set of people that they will now be branding as witches if anything happens in the family it is this old woman. So they attack the old woman or a small girl that they set them on fire. So you know some of these things were happening, and I said why don’t you see an adult man and tell him that he is a wizard. Because he will beat the hell out of you. Its the small girl you are beating. So its the vulnerable small girl that cannot even answer for herself, the old woman that cannot even lift up her hand she can hardly walk, you now brand them as witches. And you start molesting them and causing grievous injuries on them. So some of these issues now made us to start reaching out to this traditional rulers, Mai Angwas, and what  not. We really taught them that these things are criminal. 

Some elders even came here one time begging when I want to pack some of their boys to the police station for similar offenses. We met the Police Commissioner and they helped us so they came here begging on their behalf. Then we said no, you people should go back and enlighten your people. You don’t take the laws into your hands and begin to torture people because you suspect that this has happened, report to Police station. Let an arrest be done and let people go to the Police and answer for themselves not to begin to hurt the people, burn their girls and then the issue of rape and all that they should allow the perpetrators to be arrested and prosecuted. And not to handle it in a traditional way, because it is a crime against the State. So some of those things we have been able to do them and by the Grace of God, some of them are coming back to tell us, we didn’t know this thing was like this. So as far as we are concerned that’s an achievement at least we are getting there. They are buying on some of these issues. 

Q: The Gbong Gwom Jos is a  retired Customs officer so he should understand the law as it relates to human rights, did he have any special request for his people when you saw him?

A: Not really. He assured us that they are doing their best to enlighten their people about these issues going on and then he even assured us that in fact there is a woman in their traditional council now which either to they won’t have allowed her to be there. So I think that is one of the things that we took away from them at least they are listening and they are acting on what we are advocating for. I could remember they were very pleased that we were there, because we are trying to sensitize them about violence against women and so on and so forth. So he was telling us exactly what the Gbong Gwom said, that because of tradition, when you bring such issues you know they just thrashed it there, and said ah, who are you, you understand.  But that they were happy when we came and believed that this should be the beginning of good things that we can do some collaboration with the traditional council from time to time when they have meetings or they can even gather, their community members so that we sensitize them. So that by the time they hear from another different organization telling them they will know that its OK.

The Gbong Gwom wanted people to know about human rights so we went all the way to see him. 

Equally, three years ago we went through Reps Beni Lar all the way to Langtang and we enlightened them and came back. Part of what I think we have achieved again is getting the traditional rulers, or religious leaders to join the movement. During our 10th of December programme, we celebrated human rights day to commemorate the declaration of human rights. We went to Churches, particularly Churches around jos town. And we actually enlightened them over the issues of human rights, especially harmful widowhood practices, because some widows are still crying out, not only are they denied inheritance but they now even want to adopt their wives. If your husband dies, his brother his next brother will acquire you. If he doesn’t acquire you, If you don’t allow them, they will ask you to leave the family without anything. You just work away the way you came, because probably you came with your plates and everything and your bed, you may have to work away without those things that your parents even brought. So we had to do that campaign and enlightenment in our Churches and I think we have also visited the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) Chairman of Plateau State, Jamatu Nasril Islam (JNI) and we invited them for our programs. So she lead the delegation to the Mosque to meet with the JNI (pointing to her staff) and I led them to know the implications of all these. We went to CAN too, to enlightened them. I think another achievement is we’ve been able to get the government of Plateau State to recognize our presence here on the Plateau and to work with us.

Q: You paid a courtesy call on the Governor?

A: Yes we did some years back and then we went to the Attorney General (AG) of Plateau State. As soon as we went to the AG, he said ah! Human rights, we haven’t heard much from you….. . We said ah! we are here. He said ok this is what we have been doing and he just keyed into human rights which must be in the programmes. On the prerogative of mercy issue in the state, they had just formed the committee, so I said that the committee cannot exist without human rights and they had already passed the list of the proposed names to the Governor. By the time we spoke to him, he had to go and rewrite another letter to the Governor and included National Human Rights  as a member. And the next one was that he told us they have what they call Criminal Justice Committee on the Plateau and I said sir who are the members of that committee?. He told us the members and I said Human Rights has to be there. He called the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) and said immediately please put Human Rights in before anything. So we are now on the prerogative of mercy and the Criminal Justice Committee of Plateau State. All because of the courtesy calls and then our relationships with them which has improved greatly.

There is hardly any meeting now that has to do with justice on the Plateau that we are not invited. And then the the Chief Judge of the State. There is no correctional Centre visit that the CJ will embark on that he will not invite the National Human Right Commission. So we go with him every beginning of every year January the first working week of the month. We used to travel to Shendam, Langtang, Wase and Pankshin Prison and then we end up here with the Chief Judge. And he makes sure that human rights makes contributions.

Q: How many lawyers do you have working on the Plateau?

A: There are six. We had more than that before but some were transferred because headquarters said that we had too many lawyers here and some other offices didn’t have lawyers, so they took most of our lawyers and shared them to Gombe and Bayelsa respectively.

Q: What about the Legal aid people, do you collaborate with them. Because its you and them that should be able to defend those vulnerable people in the correctional centres on the spot so that the CJ can de-list them ?

A: Sure we work with legal aid. In fact we go with the legal aid, Ministry of Justice and Correctional Centre people of course they have to be there and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA).

Q: Any case of miscarriages of Justice in the ten years you have been here? 

A: Yes illegal detention etc. We pursue administrative bails. And some were just kept without evidence at the police station and we got them out. At the end of the day, the police hardly pursue justice. Some sentences given were not commensurate with the offenses. There is one pending. A woman was given shared custody of a child but the ex husband will have none of that. 

If one of the partner involved in the separation is dead, it is understandable but when partners are still alive the children know I have a mother alive and the father will not allow me see the mother it will affect me. And then some of them will bring maybe a stepmother that already has issues. We just had one case like this day before yesterday a woman was telling us about her children now, the woman wants to beat the children she doesn’t know why she must beat the children on the eye. And one of her children, one of the girls now have problems with the eye. Immediately we had this report I had to send somebody go to the school find out the truth for us are these children been maltreated in school. Go to the home of the father, go to the home of the woman, if we fight for custody for her can she take care of these children. Because we have to be sure too. In handling the issues of children you have to be sure the best interest of the child must come first before anything. So what is the best interest of these children, to stay with their mom, if she doesn’t have a means of livelihood, should we take these children there? Then she comes back crying I don’t have school fees. These children have to stay at home, is that the best interest of the child. So you have to look at all those issues before you begin to interfere in such cases or if she cannot do it, so we ask the officer to go to her own house too, check, is the environment conducive for rising children? Go to the father’s house call the children and interview them by the side are they ok. Examine their bodies are there wounds, she said her children are been beaten there, are there wounds on the body you know those kind of things, you look out for signs that shows that the children are been molested. So she has gone and come back and we are doing our report now to call the man, and the stepmother and then warn them seriously. And then we keep going to the house that one we do periodically, we go back and check to ensure that the right things are been done and a few times, interference too we have safe houses that we work with, one or two that we work with.

Q: Like foster parents?

A: They are foster parents. Caring until the child is stabilized. so when we have issues like that. There is a white lady in this town that opened her house, she sends such children to good schools. If you see the children then you will be so happy. A few of our children that we have collected you know the first one was a girl that was brought from Benue State. And the woman was beating this girl, she will design her back. We saw this girl I couldn’t look when they were trying to show me because of the wounds. And when we invited her here the girl ran away, the neighbors now brought her to us and then we called the woman, she says ah!! The girl used to pee on her body, the girl used to do this, I say aah! Aah!! Madam I am sure at some point your own children too were peeing on the bed, did you design their back the way you did for this girl? 

She was less than 10 at that time but she is a big girl now. So what we did was I called the father. And you will be shocked the father was crying on the phone, I have 8 children I don’t know what to do with them madam. I was trying to take his child back to him that this girl is been maltreated here oh! Let them not kill your daughter, he wasn’t willing to collect the girl. Because he already had 8 children.This one she doesn’t even know how to take care of them. And when he said that my heart just broke. So I just thought, what can we do to help this girl? The father obviously he is not, in fact I was willing to, we are willing to give transport money for him to come to Jos let’s sort out this matter so that he can go back with his daughter. The man said honestly, it’s impossible so I said what do we do. Do you give me your word, can I take the girl away from her and look for a place for her and he said, yes please, yes please. So we went approached this white woman, she was so happy. If you see the girl now, she is so happy. The last time we went there, took another girl there, she ran and came aunty, she held me like this, very beautiful girl you know. she is now in Secondary School. She will pass out soon? Yes so the white lady is really taking care of them. So there was one like that, she was living with her grandmother in Lantang South, they said they branded the grandmother a witch plus her and burnt their small hut and where they were living. So some spirited individual man there now went and carried the grandmother to another village and then was stuck with this girl, he didn’t want to take her there. So he called and we said just bring her, so he brought her we talked with her, innocent girl doesn’t know in fact she can’t even express herself much. So we had to take her to that place too. We took her there too and she is also doing well, so a few times we have taken women there too. One woman her police husband was beating her and the children drove them away. This same white woman helped us to take her in, she will teach them craft and they can leave after some times and establish a business or something. 

So many cases have been well treated. As I noted while doing the 16 day of activism in 2021 we reported that we have treated over 300 cases, on women issues. 

READ ALSO: https://newsng.ng/bloody-saturday-iswap-fighters-retreated-as-soldiers-local-hunters-killed-over-30-in-biu/

Q: I will deal with the statistics as the years roll by but let’s talk about your Partnership with the peace building agency on the Plateau

A: Peace holding  agency was created because of incessant crisis and issues in Plateau State. The government had come up with that idea. Its an agency that has been empowered to ensure that there is peace on the Plateau. The worrying factors are brought to the round table and they ensure that people talk their issues over on the round table and not on the battle field. So Plateau Peace Building Agency we are partners with them we work with them. They invite us to give lectures at some of their workshops and seminars. They organize seminars from time to time, you know to enlightened people and we always tell people that human right is at the core of our existence as human beings. And during crisis, human rights always you know are a victim of crisis. Before the crisis you will find out that the human rights has been violated, that’s what had lead to the crisis you know when people refuse to respect each other’s right you know, it brings about crisis. During such crisis there is human rights silence, unprecedented human right violations people are killed, people are tortured, women are raped. Then even after the crisis still people are still carrying the brunt of the war. And some people are saying we don’t agree we have been cheated they killed our people so and so number, we will go back again and retaliate. So there is always that human rights issues around the crisis. So it is only wise for anyone trying to talk peace as a necessity to ensure that human rights enlightenment comes along with the issues of peace. So I think we have been working along with them, to ensure that whenever or wherever they go for this kind of mission, the Human Rights Commission should be involved to enlighten people. 

People are not really enlightened about human right – Barr Grace