What happened?
In recent times, droves of terrorists have been defecting from the Boko Haram terror group and returning to state-controlled territories. Many of them are women. However, due to the inherent societal perception of women as perpetual victims, structures do not exist to receive women who have been perpetrators and have now defected, to deradicalise them and absorb them back into the society.
HumAngle has been utilising the defection by interacting with relevant actors, towards achieving a better and more in-depth understanding of the insurgency. We have interviewed women deserters and found some troubling insights and developments.
Nigeria’s current deradicalisation, rehabilitation, and reintegration programme for Boko Haram/ISWAP deserters has undergone heavy criticism by researchers. HumAngle’s investigations found that there was no clear structure for screening suspected deserters and admitting them into the programme. Many of those we spoke to insist they had never had anything to do with terror groups and had been arrested while they were fleeing their villages as internally displaced persons. HumAngle spoke to their families and our findings mostly corroborated their claims.
The current model of the programme being used also does not admit women. It has only admitted women once in 2016/2017 and only three of them. We spoke to them as well and found that the processes used for “deradicalising” them were deeply troubling.
Why does it matter?
According to experts we spoke to, there are many far-reaching consequences of having radicalised women back into the society without a structured programme to screen them and disengage them from harmful ideologies.
Women have been known to serve as recruiters for terror groups, for example. Their returning from settlements in the forest and now settling in state-controlled territories may be part of ISWAP’s new campaign towards infiltrating urban areas, thus having them help to carry out attacks or recruitments. An unregulated defection, therefore, puts all of us at risk, with both immediate and long-term consequences.
What should be done?
The deradicalisation programme codenamed Operation Safe Corridor needs to be standardised. There are allegations of corruption and funds diversion leading to poor management, starvation, and generally unbearable living conditions for the people. It is recommended that an investigation is immediately launched into this.
Further, there needs to be a standard and accessible curriculum being used at the programme, formed by adequately qualified and world-class experts. This is critical for transitional justice efforts especially as many of the defectors were once victims who were first abducted and subsequently indoctrinated.
The three women HumAngle spoke to, who underwent the programme in 2016/2017, alleged that they were forced to wear bikinis out in the open to prove they no longer had radical ideologies, and required to shake the hands of men even though it was against their religious and personal convictions. This is severely counterproductive.
The programme needs to, first, be fixed, and then reopened for women, with safer and more dignifying approaches that do not violate their fundamental human rights or objectifies or sexualizes them. This can be done through collaboration with relevant humanitarian actors. It is also recommended that it now incorporates and recognises the sexual and reproductive health rights of women as many of them have suffered sexual and reproductive health challenges such as uterine prolapses. Efforts into providing help for them in this area are important.
