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 AFROL
Gender Profiles:
Nigeria
Nigeria is Africa's most populous country and has as such a great
ethnical, cultural and religious diversity. The federal Constitution
also provides for diversity in legislation, letting some northern
states practice the Muslim Shari' a. The general picture, however,
is of a country struck by poverty, misadministration and increasing
internal conflict. Although some federal legislation is in favour of
women's rights, the trend rather goes towards a strengthening of
traditional values, less favourable to Nigeria's over 60 millon
women. Thus, recent local Shari' a practices are known to violate
basic human rights. Women's rights groups are active, mostly in the
south.
Spousal abuse is common in Nigeria, especially wife beating in polygynous
families. The Penal Code permits husbands to use physical means to chastise their wives. Polygyny is practiced widely.
Rape, prostitution and sexual harassment is a significant problem in Nigeria.
Many customary practices do not recognize a women's right to inherit her
husband's property. Female Genital Mutilation is practiced extensively in all parts of the country.
Each Nigerian woman
averagely gives birth to 5,66 children (2000 est.).
Social data
Life expectancy: Total population: 51,56 years
male: 51,58 years
female: 51,55 years (2000 est.)
Alphabetization rate: Total population: 57,1%
male: 67,3%
female: 47,3% (1995 est.)
Medical services: 67% of the people have access to medical
services. (4.762 persons per doctor).
Sex ratio: at birth: 1,03 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1,01 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 1,04 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 1 male(s)/female
total population: 1,02 male(s)/female (2000 est.)
Religious data: Muslim 48%, traditional African religions
16,03%, Christian 35,97%
NOTE: estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2000 )
Family and tradition
While some women have made considerable individual progress, both in the academic and business world, women remain underprivileged. Although women are not barred legally from owning land, under some customary land tenure systems only men can own land, and women can gain access to land only through marriage or family. In addition many customary practices do not recognize a women's right to inherit her husband's property, and many widows
are rendered destitute when their in-laws take virtually all of the deceased husband's property. Widows are subjected to unfavorable conditions as a result of discriminatory traditional customs and economic deprivation. "Confinement" is the most common rite of deprivation to which widows are subjected, and it occurs predominately in eastern Nigeria. Confined widows are under restrictions for as long as 1 year and usually are required to shave their heads and dress in black garments. In other areas, a widow is considered a part of her husband's property, to be "inherited" by his family. Polygyny continues to be practiced widely among all ethnic groups and among Christians as well as Muslims and practitioners of traditional persuasions. Women are required by law to obtain permission from a male family member to get a passport. The testimony of women is not equal to that of men in
Shari' a court.
The Government only occasionally criticized child abuse and neglect, and it made little effort to stop customary practices harmful to children, such as the sale of young girls into marriage. There were credible reports that poor families sell their daughters into marriage as a means of supplementing their income. Young girls often are forced into marriage as soon as they reach puberty, regardless of age, in order to prevent the "indecency" associated with premarital sex.
Female Genital Mutilation is practiced among all ethnic and religious groups. According to an NNC study, an estimated 33 percent of all households practice the procedure.
Gender sensitivity in society
The 1999 Constitution provides citizens with the right to freedom from discrimination based on "community, place of origin, ethnic group, sex, religion, or political opinion." However, customary and religious discrimination against women
persists, occasional religious violence persists, social discrimination on the basis of both religion and ethnicity
remains widespread.
Women are discriminated against in access to education for social and economic reasons. The literacy rate for males is 58 percent but only 41 percent for females. Rural women are even more disadvantaged than their urban counterparts. Only 42 percent of rural girls are enrolled in school compared with 72 percent of urban girls. In the north, Muslim communities favor boys over girls in deciding which children to enroll in secondary and elementary schools. In the south, economic hardship also restricts many families' ability to send girls to school and, instead, they are directed into commercial activities such as trading and street merchandizing.
A visiting Hausa woman in the southwest part of the country who violated a religious taboo against women's viewing a Yoruba festival was killed by a mob.
A national network of women's rights NGO's described the Government's 1998 report on the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) for the period 1986-94 as "inaccurate" in its positive portrayal of the status of women. The NGO coalition for a shadow report on the implementation of CEDAW (NGO CEDAW Coalition) issued an alternative report in March critical of the Government's failure to remove legal impediments and social discrimination faced by women.
Women experience considerable discrimination as well as physical abuse. There are no laws barring women from particular fields of employment, but women often experience discrimination because the Government tolerates customary and religious practices that adversely affect them. The Nigerian NGO's Coalition (NNC) expressed concern about continued discrimination against women in the private sector, particularly in access to employment, promotion to higher professional positions, and in salary inequality. There are credible reports that several businesses operate with a "get pregnant, get fired" policy. Women remain underrepresented in the formal sector but play an active and vital role in the country's important informal economy. While the number of women employed in the business sector increases every year, women do not receive equal pay for equal work and often find it extremely difficult to acquire commercial credit or to obtain tax deductions or rebates as heads of households. Unmarried women in particular endure many forms of
discrimination.
Health data
Access to potable water: 49%
Medical services: 67% of the people have access to medical services. ( 4.762 persons per
doctor).
Maternal mortality rate: 1.000/100.000
Infant mortality: 74,18 deaths/1.000 live births (2000 est.)
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM): From 60 to 90% of Nigerian females undergo this
procedure.
The Government publicly opposes FGM, which is widely condemned by international health experts as damaging to both physical and psychological health. The Government
take no legal action against the practice; in the past, government officials (notably in the Ministry of Health) supported the campaign against FGM, which was spearheaded by private groups. FGM still
is practiced extensively in all parts of the country but is more predominant in the southern and eastern zones; it
is practiced among all ethnic and religious groups. According to an NNC study, an estimated 33 percent of all households practice the procedure. Current estimates place the prevalence of FGM at between 40 and 50 percent of all females, although estimates vary. Studies conducted by the U.N. Development Systems and the World Health Organization estimated the FGM rate at approximately 60 percent among the nation's female population. However, according to local experts, the actual prevalence may be as high as 90 percent. Nevertheless, most agree that the number of females now subjected to FGM is declining.
Indigenous forms of FGM vary from the simple removal of the clitoral hood or labia minora to excision of the clitoris and the most dangerous form, infibulation. The age at which females are subjected to the practice varies from the first week of life until after a woman delivers her first child. The Ministry of Health, women's groups, and many NGO's sponsored public awareness projects to educate communities about the health hazards of FGM. The press repeatedly criticized the practice.
In October the governor of Zamfara signed into law two bills passed by the state legislature aimed at instituting Islamic
(Shari' a) law in the state. As a result, in Zamfara State plans for separate transportation and health facilities for men and women already had begun to be implemented by year's end.
Violence against women
Reports of spousal abuse are common, especially those of wife beating in polygynous families. Police normally do not intervene in domestic disputes, which seldom are discussed publicly. The Penal Code permits husbands to use physical means to chastise their wives as long as it does not result in "grievous harm," which is defined as loss of sight, hearing, power of speech, facial disfigurement, or other life threatening injuries. A women's rights group has estimated that spousal abuse occurs in 20 percent of adult relationships. In more traditional areas of the country, courts and police are reluctant to intervene to protect women who accuse their husbands formally if the level of alleged abuse does not exceed customary norms in the areas. Rape, prostitution, and sexual harassment continue to be problems. Prostitution is not illegal; pandering is. In some parts of the country, women continue to be harassed for social and religious reasons. Purdah, the Islamic practice of keeping girls and women in seclusion from men outside the family, continued in parts of the far north.
There is an active and growing market for trafficking in women and children to Europe for illicit purposes. The nature and scope of the trade remained unknown, but immigration and police officials throughout Europe reported a steady flow of Nigerian women entrapped and sold into prostitution in Europe, particularly the Netherlands, Italy, and the Czech Republic. Italian authorities deported several hundred sex workers to Nigeria during the year; Spanish authorities deported 16. Other European countries deported similar numbers. Nigerian Interpol claimed that women usually entered the sex trade independently, were not controlled by syndicates, and were economically motivated. However, there is evidence that Nigerian crime syndicates may use indebtedness, threats of beatings and/or rape, physical injury to the victim's family, arrest, and deportation to persuade those forced into sex work from attempting to escape. The police reported that the women's families often condoned their entry into the trade. The Dutch intercepted what they suspect may have been the organized smuggling of up to 12 children during a 5-month period from November 1998 to March. There was at least one documented case of the trafficking in children to work as indentured servants in the United States. There also is evidence of trafficking of children to the United States and Europe, mostly for the reunification of children with their undocumented parents abroad.
According to a press report from the Niger Delta region, there is an active trade in child laborers, some of whom are exported to Cameroon, Gabon, Benin, and Equatorial Guinea to work in agricultural enterprises, others of whom are coerced into prostitution. In January Cote D'Ivoire authorities repatriated 11 10- and 11-year-old girls from Abidjan to Lagos. Authorities also have identified a trade route for traffickers of children for labor through Katsina and Sokoto to the Middle East and East Africa. The eastern part of the country and some southern states such as Cross River and Akwa Ibom have been the focus of trafficking of children for labor and, in some cases, human sacrifice.
Main sources: U.S. Department of State, CIA,
UN, HRW, Mundo negro
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