The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, has advised women in the Niger Delta who are bedeviled by herdsmen attack, environmental degradation, domestic violence and other heinous acts against their rights to always resort to legal action to address the injustice.
The Deputy Director, SERAP, Kolawole Oluwadara, said this at an interactive session on Strategic Litigation and Women Role in Advancing Social Justice in the Niger Delta, organised by SERAP with funding from Ford Foundation, held in Port Harcourt, on Monday.
He said most of what is bedeviling women in Niger Delta can be addressed through legal actions such as seeking for compensation, barring certain actions that may infringe on their rights.
Beside the court could prescribe appropriate punishment for the perpetrators, he added.
He opined that the problem that had been in such human rights violation was that women tend to keep quiet and ‘leave it for God’s vengeance’.
The Deputy Director pointed out that by the time women would be suing and getting a lot of monetary compensations and damages that the perpetrators would think twice in their nefarious activities.
He stated that SERAP would collate and distill all the issues raised by the participants with a view to proferring solution through legal advocacy.
Oluwadara reiterated SERAP’s willingness to use legal advocacy to draw attention to issues that are happening in the Niger Delta and empower its women to find a voice.
” This conversation is the first step in the many actions we aim to take to empower women in the Niger Delta communities to have a voice in achieving social justice.
“Whatever issue that have been identified in this room is going to be collated and we will all work together to see how we can use legal advocacy to achieve an outcome. Some of it ofcourse include; Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against either government institutions or oil companies. It may also mean other legal advocacy to ensure that we draw attention to these issues until we are able to get remedy for the various injuries that have happened to women in Niger Delta communities”, he said.
The high point of the interactive session was report presentation on Mobilising Resource Communities to Use Strategic Litigation as Tool for Social Justice by SERAP’s Lead Research Consultant, Emilia Okon and a training session on Legal Tools for Women in Oil-producing Communities by Laeticia Uju, Esq.
In her presentation, Okon, noted that women when mobilised had great power to compel the government and companies grant concessions.
She described the role of women in demanding social justice in the Niger Delta as crucial, stating that they can use the court to do so
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She called on other organisations to join SERAP empower women in the region.
The Research Consultant observed that there are a lot of organisations working with refugees because of the war in the northeast region of the country, stressing that it was not so in the Niger Delta area where there are even more crisis affecting their livelihood, food, health, etc.
” I really think that women can mobilise better. Women achieve more when they work together. They should engage in advocacy that favours all. The goal should be to make every woman’s life better”, she advised
On her part, Uju, listed Freedom of Information Act 2011, Public Interest Litigation, Support and legal Assistance among others as legal tools that women can use to enforce their rights.
She noted that Freedom of Information Act 2011 is a very powerful tool, saying the beauty of it is that both literate and illiterate persons could use it.
Speaking further, she said all other tools fall under the Public Interest Litigation, which according to her, meant going to court and filing a suit for the benefit of all.
She urged women in the region to work hand-in-hand with SERAP to file PIL suit in the interest of their communities.
The interactive session was attended by women from Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo and Rivers states.
