Abuja, Nigeria — The Nigerian National Human Rights Commission on Wednesday inaugurated a forum targeting rights violations in the West African nation.
The Human Rights Defenders Forum was held on the sidelines of an NHRC meeting to review the state of human rights in Nigeria.
The initiative is a partnership between the NHRC and the European Union.
Officials say the forum, comprising various human rights groups, will be responsible for ensuring greater protection of civil liberties in Nigeria and serve as a unified platform for rights defenders to interact and address common challenges.
NHRC Executive Director Anthony Ojukwu said, “We’re gathered here not only to discuss the current state of human rights in Nigeria, but also to start to chart a way forward — one that ensures safer protection for civil liberties, fosters democratic consolidation and safeguards the fundamental rights of all Nigerians, especially those who stand up for the rights of others.”
The meeting comes amid a recent spate of human rights violations, including a crackdown on antigovernment demonstrations in August and the prolonged detention of minors who took part.
The delegates also discussed digital rights, privacy protection, gender-based violence and child abandonment by parents.
The NHRC said security forces were contributing to human rights violations in Nigeria.
Hilary Ogbonna, a senior adviser to the agency, said, “The majority of these violators are the Nigerian police, the military, bandits and parents of children. We also saw an upsurge of sexual and gender-based violence.
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“But that is not as worrisome as 4,300 [cases of] child abandonment,” he said.
The Nigerian police and military have not responded to being named as violators of human rights, but last week, the NHRC found the military culpable for infanticide and extrajudicial killings during a 2016 operation in a remote village in northeastern Borno State.
The NHRC also raised concerns about the growing threat of insecurity in Nigeria and its impact on the rights of the people.
The commission said it recorded more than 1,700 cases of kidnappings and about 1,500 killings between January and September this year.
Damilola Decker, programs officer with the Nigeria-based group Global Rights, said economic vulnerability is one of the reasons that the rights situation is deteriorating.
“What we’re observing under the [Nigerian President Bola] Tinubu administration is that civic space is under attack, attacks on journalists, attacks on the rights of people to protest,” Decker said.
“We’re also seeing economic and sociocultural rights of Nigerians being impacted majorly because of the harsh economic conditions especially related to energy prices,” he said. “It’s cascading — crime is on the rise; the state of insecurity is on the increase.”
