How female IDPs offer camp officials, elders sex for food

According to Leadership newspapers, which cited a situational Assessment survey on IDP’s in the region conducted by NOI Polls, about 66 percent of camp officials, 28 percent from host communities and 6 percent of elders are taking advantage of the vulnerability of the women.

A group of 15 International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs) had on Saturday, September 24, said that no fewer than 6 million people in the region face threat of severe hunger arising from insurgency.

It is believed that the pitiable condition of the displaced women forced them to giving in to sexual advances as long as it would guarantee them food.

The report revealed that some of the female IDPs voluntarily offer camp officials sex for food and for freedom of movement within and outside the camps just as others offer themselves for basic female sanitary requirements.

A breakdown of the report indicated that 190 respondents were drawn from Borno, 128 in Adamawa and 82 in Yobe states.

The respondents were aged between 18 years and above while the face-to-face survey technique enabled NOIPolls to capture the reality of the IDPs.

As contained in the report: “Though the provision of firewood is the responsibility of local government areas and State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) as stipulated in the Memorandum of Understanding signed between federal government and state government, thousands of IDP’s including lactating mothers, children and elderly starve due to the absence of firewood."

The survey also revealed an increase in social vices at the camps like drug abuse, consumption of illicit drugs, prostitution and petty crime as a result of the general poor welfare and deplorable living conditions of the IDPs.

“There are also rising cases of unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and HIV/AIDs while some IDP’s had fallen prey to unscrupulous members of host communities who take advantage of their plight to force them into early marriages and even kidnap them for child labour,”the report added.

As highlighted in the report, 85 percent of IDPs in Adamawa and 84 percent in Yobe are facing incidences of discrimination compared to 76 percent in Borno which was linked to ethnic problems that has existed between the northern and southern Borno natives.

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Presenting the survey, the Chief Executive Officer of NOIPolls, Dr Bell Ihua confirmed that only 10 to 20 percent of IDP’s live in camps while 80 to 90 percent live in host communities stressing that petty crimes and drug abuse are also on the increase at the camps.

Ihua regretted the rising cases of mortality, which he said that 88 percent IDP’s died on daily basis as was witnessed during the survey adding that there was a cholera outbreak in the camps.

He requested for unannounced presidential visit by Muhammadu Buhari to Maiduguri as a way of boosting the morals of security agencies fighting insurgency in the area even as he advocated for increased funding for the IDP’s.