Where are the Women in the Fulani Herdsmen Crisis?
By Tannuja Rozario, Director of Research at the Center for Progressive Security
Gender-based violence remains a critical issue in the Fulani Herdsmen crisis in Nigeria. As a largely nomadic group, they move from one place to another in search of pasture to realize their claims for political and economic power. In route, women’s bodies become battlegrounds to achieve ownership over land. Little attention has been paid to this crisis in the international community and academia to further extrapolate the human rights violations against women. What we need to look at is the impact such violence has on women and the implications of this on communities.
To do this, this conflict needs to be explored through a gendered and human rights analysis. Bringing sexual and gender-based violence to the forefront in this conflict can help us understand gender strategies of terrorist groups and the role of women and NGOs to combat such violence. The women’s voices in this conflict are silenced and this silence contributes to the perpetuation of violence.
The Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom in Nigeria reported that the increased competition for natural resources among farming and herders’ communities has led to many violent clashes. As a result, families, particularly women and children, have been displaced and killed by the herdsmen, and there have been no arrests for prosecutions that have taken place thus far.
According to the Assessment Capacity Project, over 2,000 people were killed and approximately 62,000 people were displaced in 2016 alone. Instead of healing victims and offering support for women and children to regain agency from this political violence, they endure more human rights violations. Such violations include psychological trauma, food insecurity, the lack of reliable healthcare, and little to no social and economic security. These implications greatly impact women because they are left out of decision-making processes and offer no protection to women, which leads to a cycle of violence of the state and terrorist organizations.
To look at the sexual and gender-based violence more closely, we must pay attention to the strategies that are used by the Fulani Herdsmen that valorize gendered stereotypes and beliefs to perpetuate ongoing structures and in institutions of hegemonic masculinity. Most of the academic research focuses on the urban violence around land conflicts and conflict resolution among crop farmers and Fulani Herdsmen. Where is the gendered analysis, along with other systems of oppression?
We need more counterterrorism and extremism literature to explore these conflicts. It is an intersectional approach that examines how these land conflicts impact people based on their sexuality, race, nation, class, and ethnicity. These categories are missing in the discourse, although this group continues to use bodies as tools to increase their influence and consolidate their territorial gains.
We need to hear the voices of women in Nigeria. Too often, we find reports on this crisis that do not address the experiences of women. In April 2016, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reported a deadly attack against several communities without mention of the gender strategies that are used. The Center for Progressive Security (CPS) will give voice to the experiences of these women in their first independent research study to show how gendered strategies are used by Fulani Herdsmen to achieve their goals to attain political and economic authority and examine women’s responses to these strategies. This case is crucial to understand because it tackles the cultural and gender norms that put women in situations where their bodies become weapons of political struggle and a resource to maintain violence in Nigeria. Let’s bring the experiences of these women to the forefront and finally give them a voice.
