NFF: Press Release on Plateau Killings

PRESS RELEASE:

The Nigerian Feminists Forum (NFF) is dismayed and alarmed by what appears to be an
overwhelming rise in killings in Nigeria’s central state of Plateau. The coordinated
retaliatory attack took place on Monday June 25, 2018 in 11 villages in Barkin Ladi Local
Government Area left many innocent people dead especially women and children.

Thousands of Women and children have their settlements affected and have become
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) with no place to go to.
In the past few months, many notable incidents of sexual abuse and sexual
enslavement of female IDPs have been reported in different parts of Nigeria. These
have without attention, remedy or redress. This has not helped in any way and does
not reassure women in displacement, many of them accompanied by their children, that
there will be any security for them as they cope with the trauma of the life threatening
situations that they escaped.

The rising insecurity in the Middle Belt is not just a cause of death, rape and
displacement for women and their children, it also has caused destruction of schools
adding tens of thousands more children to the numbers of 13 million Nigerian children
who are out of school.

It seems clear that both the security services and political leadership in Nigeria have
persisted in failing the people of the Middle Belt unconscionably. The NFF hereby calls
on the Federal government to:

1. implore effective and efficient means to stop the massacre in Plateau and in
   other parts of the Middle Belt and of Nigeria.
2. ensure independent investigation of these massacres and effective prosecution of
   perpetrators;
3. put in place a victim’s response mechanism for reporting, investigating and
   prosecution of perpetuators of sexual violence in IDPs camps.
4. provide a conducive, secure, equipped settlements for all internally displaced
   persons (IDPs) with adequate food supply and advertence to basic and maternal
   health needs of women as well as basic instruction facilities for children of school
   age
5. ensure an effective policy of zero tolerance for sexual assault on women and
   children in IDP camps; and
6. Take steps with more effective management of security assets to bring an end to
   these massacres and ensure non-repetition.

Signed,
Ogechi Ikeh
Nigerian Feminist Forum Secretariat

Date June 27, 2018
Cel No: +2348038233877 

About the Nigerian Feminist Forum (NFF)

The Nigerian Feminist Forum (NFF) is a biennial public policy forum that brings together
feminists from the six geo-political zones, government officials, and other strategic partners to
deliberate on issues of key concern to the development of and emancipation of women in
Nigeria. We can be reached via email at;nff@alliancesforafrica.org and via twitter: @nff2008