If there is a book more African women need to read then that book is Everything Good Will Come which was written by Sefi Atta, a Nigerian writer and playwright.
It is a novel that explores the themes of friendship, marriage and what it meant for women to protest against military rule in Nigeria.
Without giving too many spoilers in the novel, Everything Good Will Come also highlighted a topic that I believe does not receive as much attention in African and Nigerian media. That is the topic of women who are wrongfully imprisoned or imprisoned whilst protecting themselves from rapists and violent men.
In the novel, the main character found herself in a prison and in the prison, there were widowed women who had killed men who were being violent towards them. Most of these women were however abandoned in the prison and had been awaiting trial for more than five years.
If one follows Nigerian feminist discussions online, one would notice that recently there have been discussions around prison abolition and its practicality. One would also observe that some “feminists” advocate for the rehabilitation of rapists and abusive men and insult women who do not think that rapists can be rehabilitated and who want these men imprisoned and killed.
While prison abolition is up for debate, one thing I find interesting is that there is not enough space to speak on the feminist angles in how women are imprisoned. And why is that?
Why is there little space to discuss how even when women fight back in cases of rape and domestic violence, the rapist can use the police to arrest and threaten a woman?
Why is it that the police do the exact opposite of protecting women such that when women come to social media to speak against domestic abuse, men feel confident to tell women to go to the police because they know nothing will be done? Even more, why are there so few resources to advocate for the women and girls who were housekeepers and got sent to prison for killing the man of the house who tried raping them?
Away from the women who kill abusive men, where are the discussions on how the police can be used to threaten women who do not give in to the advances of a powerful man?
To further understand the feminist angles behind women’s wrongful imprisonment, I spoke to two women.
For Chivie, a writer, feminist and founder of Kambili Magazine, she believes that it not only applies in Nigeria and that women face punishment from the state.
In her words: “It’s not just in Nigeria. Even in developed countries like the US, a lot of women are imprisoned for killing their abusers.
It’s a really infuriating phenomenon, because the government does nothing to protect women who are stalked or abused. A lot of men do not stay away after they get a restraining order. So these women are either murdered by their abusers or the few who are brave enough to defend themselves get punished by the state. It’s infuriating.”
When asked to share her opinion, Sunshine, a Nigerian lawyer said that the Nigerian police is extremely sexist and the justice system needs an overhaul.
To quote her: “Wrongful Arrests and Convictions of women do not get as amplified as that of men as a result of sexism and sometimes benevolent misogyny because people generally believe that for a woman to have been arrested, tried and convicted, there has to have been reasonable cause that she committed the crime especially if it’s an offense of a violent nature.
Also, sexism in its own part contributes to the fact that men’s crimes are more of a violent nature and men are more inclined to believe other men. Hence, it’s easier for them to rally around their kind and claim his innocence while women on the other hand who especially in African countries are already considered as second class citizens and in such situations, only other women are concerned about her plight while men start playing devil’s advocate and suddenly trust in the justice system but when a man is in custody, everyone cares about substantive justice.”
She went on to say: “As regards men telling women to report their abusers to the police and follow “Due process”, in my experience, it is a means of shutting up the victim because we are all aware of the inadequacies of our justice system especially with the low rate of conviction and the standard of proof required for criminal convictions. It is even worse when the perpetrator is someone who is presumed to have influence and is renowned but as I have earlier mentioned, men would rather trust the word of another man who’s a stranger than a woman they’ve known all their lives.
In addition, I am of the firm belief that such men are also offenders themselves who either do not want to accept the truth about themselves OR they revel in the fact that less victims will speak up if there are hardly any convictions and their crimes would never come to light and as such they would not be brought to book.
As a lawyer, my experience with the police is that the NPF is extremely sexist. The few times I had to deal with them either to bail out a client or something was triggering my anxiety. The Force operates using intimidation tactics so right as you walk in, you may feel uncomfortable and be jittery especially as it’s an hostile environment (I’m sure we’ve heard of lawyers who go to a police station and end up in a cell).
Also, in most police stations, you’ll be asked to drop your phone at the counter before they’d address the issue you’re there for. This is also in addition to the fact that the officers are not well trained especially in cases relating to all forms of violence against women and children.
Highlighting the plight of women who are wrongfully imprisoned: First and foremost, we’ll require an overhaul of the justice system. If less arrests were carried out on the orders of influential persons we would have fewer women in custody for offenses they did not commit.
Secondly, we need more prison outreaches to prisons as our prisons are congested. Less than 30% of inmates have been convicted while the others are awaiting trial and some have never been charged before and some have not been able to perfect their bail conditions.
Lastly, even the cases of inmates who have been convicted will also require review because quite a number of them were haphazardly tried and are wrongful convictions.”
For there to be a truly just world, then the justice system itself must reflect values of fairness, trust and equality.
To achieve justice for women, it is imperative that more spaces are created to highlight how the justice system is not aligned to women’s rights. Only then can a wholesome conversation on feminist solutions begin.
Angel Nduka-Nwosu is a writer, journalist and editor. She moonlights occasionally as a podcaster on As Angel Was Sayin’. Catch her on all socials @asangelwassayin.