NIGER: Rape and beatings of women seen as “normal”

“Women here have been indoctrinated by their families, by religious officials, by society that this is a normal phenomenon,” said Lisette Quesnel, a gender-based violence advisor with Oxfam in Niger, which produced the statistic from a survey of women in the remote Zinder region of eastern Niger in 2006.

The frequency of the crimes and the impunity granted to the attackers partly explain the broad social acceptance of it, activists say. Rape is increasingly common in the capital Niamey.

Beatings and mental and physical abuse are “frequently” part of life in a typical Nigerien polygamous family, said Fatima Ibrahima, who designs projects meant to prevent this kind of violence in Niger.

And women are often made destitute overnight when their polygamous husbands throw them out on the street. Divorces are passed by judges without even hearing “one word” from the women involved.

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