How Soldiers Forced Us To Deny Being Raped – IDP Victims

The Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in North-East Nigeria have again confessed that they were coerced to deny allegation that the Nigerian Army and Civilian Joint Task Force Rape them.

In May 2018, the human rights organization, Amnesty International published a report of how the Army and JTF sexually-abuse the IDPs in exchange for food.

The military refuted the allegations after the Army led some journalists to various IDP camps and could not confirm the case of sexual abuse.

“I have interacted with the stakeholders in the camps and they said that the Nigerian armed forces have neither molested, sexually assaulted nr raped any IDP as alleged by Amnesty International’s recent concocted report,” John Agim, acting director of defence information, said after thy visit.

However, the IDPs have said they were asked to say “there were no issues” in the camp during the visit.

They spoke in a statement issued Monday, under Knifar, a movement of women IDPs in the region, and led by Hajiya Hamsatu Allamin, a rights activist.

The statement published via the movement’s Twitter handle reads:

“The military came to Dalori with journalists to ask the displaced women if we were raped. Before the visit, the women were told to say everything is fine, that there are no issues. Is this the way our complaints are handled?

“One of our members was there. She has an 18-month-old son, fathered by a soldier. Too scared and intimidated to speak, she said nothing. No one spoke. Why are we forced to be exposed in such a way?

“It happened to us. It is real. And we formed our group to allow women to get accountability. We have said it before. We are ready to speak but we can not imagine this is the way to do this.”

They asked Pesident Buhari to hear their cries and “investigate the soldiers who raped us when we were in Bama.”

“Our children died because there was not enough food, unless we had sex with soldiers,” they said, adding: “We have said it before: we are ready to speak to any investigation team the president sends to us. We only ask it will not be led by soldiers as they are also the ones who abused our women.”