Hajia Laila Dogonyaro, former President, National Council of Women Societies and chairperson, Jamiyyar Matan Arewa, an NGO that promotes women rights and emancipation, spoke with FEMI ADI on the travails of northern women.
Q: It has been observed that there are many highly educated women, who today have been deprived by their powerful, elite husbands from working as career women despite the huge amount of money spent on such women to acquire education. Why is this prevalent among northern men?
A: I am so happy that at least now it has been acknowledged that northern women are as highly educated as their peers from the South. That fact has been suppressed for a very long time. We all know that the problem of girl-child education has always been part of discussion as a problem of the North. I have worked promoting education of the girl-child in the North for over 40 years now. It is true that there are some northern women professionals that do not work. This is not because they are prevented from doing so by their husbands. I’ll give you the example of my daughters. All my daughters got married immediately after secondary school, because I believe in the institution of marriage and they went to universities in their husbands’ homes. My first daughter went to the Polytechnic and she had her Higher National Diploma in Tourism, but the decision was hers that she wanted to raise her family. She doesn’t want to be distracted so she started a poultry business. She was doing her business at home and taking care of her children as well. Thank God that all her children but one have almost finished their university education and one is currently doing his masters. You can see that she used her education in training her children. I have another one married to a Kano indigene. She is currently studying law and is now in her third year. She is also at home taking care of her children. She is also into politics as well as being an activist. It is a matter of prioritising the family. I know a lot of young women from the North that put their family first and most of them go to work after they finish raising their families.
Q: In most cases that we have witnessed, religion or culture seemed to be largely responsible for the decision taken by these powerful northern elite to stop their wives from working. Could this be true?
A: No no, religion or culture has nothing to with women not working. Like the case of Kule, this is a religious obligation if the husband wants to practise it. However, the important thing is for the wife to protect her home. But simply because a woman is educated does not mean that she must work. There are certain issues in life that people must understand. Some people design the way they want their lives to go. You will agree with me that for over 20 years now, we have noticed moral decay in our society and this has become an issue of concern. But in today’s Nigeria, you will find out that the mother is not there and the father has to be in the office very early in the morning. So by the time they leave home to go to work their children are still in bed and by the time they would return, it’s late, they might be in bed. So you find that it is only the mother that takes care of the children. And if the mother is working or doing business, and the father is not there, the children are left at the mercy of nannies. Those nannies have no obligation to mould the character of these children. In most cases they are doing a service most of them don’t want to do. So you find children left at the mercy of these people and the mothers are at work, the fathers are not there. Every religion preaches that it is the responsibility of parents to give their children good upbringing and for a very long time we have been talking to our daughters that ‘yes it’s good to be educated, yes it’s good to be a professional, yes it’s good to be a politician, but raise your children to the level that they could be able to take care of themselves before you get very much involved in other activities.’ It is for this reason that you find most northern girls that are educated staying at home to raise their families. Some even get pressure from mothers like me. Why must you work when you have little kids? Some, their husbands would say: look how much will you get as salary? So, don’t work.
Q: You are one northern woman that had the advantage of acquiring education and your husband allowed you to participate in politics. But today it is no longer the case. Once a woman in the North attempts to do so she is eventually divorced. Why?A: Politics is called a dirty game by almost everybody. A woman, whether married or unmarried, is supposed to be responsible and preserve her dignity. A woman must protect the name of the family more than the man. There were women that were in politics besides myself and were successful and they had the support of their husbands. Why? Because they respected themselves and they made sure they did not rubbish the name of their family. Of course we had those that were married but forgot that they were. They went into politics for what they could get out of it, just like we have a lot of men that go into politics because of what they can get and not for what they can contribute .No doubt, if a woman goes into politics without focus, she doesn’t care whatever it will cost her to get what she wants. And of course, no man will be happy with such a woman. I know of a man in Kano who takes his wife to meetings even in the middle of the night, and he’ll wait in the car until she finishes her meeting and then take her home. But of course, there are a lot of men who do not want their wives to delve into politics because they have abused somebody’s wife who happens to be in politics and so they believe every woman in politics will be like that woman they have abused.
The northern woman has a very strong character hidden in that subservient attitude. If she says this is what she wants and she believes it is good for her and her family, she would stand by it until she gets it from that tough man you see on the street. Not by being rude. Our people are more enlightened .The man my daughter brought home was the one she married. Unlike before when the father would say this is the person I want my daughter to marry. And then the girl can go to her mother and talk to her and the mother will now know how to talk to that macho father to understand that he wants to marry him because he loves her. We are taught to know that we are completely under the control of our husbands. But our men know that where they are going wrong ,we put our feet down to say no and when we say no, it is no. We want people to believe that we are subservient to our husbands, but we are not slaves to them. We are equal partners in love and marriage.
Early marriage is one of identified factors causing Vesico Vaginal Fistula, VVF, and often these unfortunate women are abandoned and eventually divorced.
The issue of early marriage in the North is one issue that has been tackled by both women NGOs, religious leaders and northern leaders. I can tell you categorically that no parent marries out their daughters at age nine again, not even at the age of 14. The earliest they do so now is 15 and they must have reached puberty. But I have seen a lot young women around 17 or 18 in the South that are prostitutes and I ask myself, which is better? A girl prostitute or child bride? We have done a lot of research on VVF and what causes it basically is prolonged labour. You find out that the bulk of VVF patients are from villages. This is because they do not have immediate access to a hospital or they suffer mismanagement by a birth attendant in the hospital. I was married out at the age of 13 years and four months and I had my first son when I was 15 and today I am not a VVF patient. Why? Because we were in the urban area with my husband, an educated person who ensured that I attended my regular clinics. And immediately I went into labour I was taken to the hospital. But we see women who were in labour for three days before being taken to the hospital. It is very difficult to treat. Of course very few men in this world will live with a VVF patient.
Q: But where marriage is said to be for better for worse, don’t you think to abandon a wife after destroying her is unjust?
A: You see, for better for worse is best said in front of the officiating ministers of marriage but it’s not put to practice, whether a person is a Christian or a Muslim. Sometimes the woman can tolerate and in some cases the women themselves opt out.
Q: Now that divorce is apparently rampant in the North, what role does religion play?
A: Islam does not propagate divorce. In fact, marriage is not something that one jokes with. We have discovered that most times that a man sees a woman, says he wants her, he might not want her for marriage but because he cannot get her for what he wants, he will tell her ‘let’s marry’. No religion encourages divorce. Sometimes you marry a man, you come to his home to discover he does nothing, he can not provide for the family, he has some habits that he hid, he has faked who he truly is. These could be some reasons. Another could be that the man marries a woman who can not cook and is insolent. Many men cannot not live with such women. I have some of my friends who were married in the Christian way, they are very unhappy but because the procedure of divorce is cumbersome they are compelled to remain in marriage, yet the marriage is not working. The most painful thing any family can go through is divorce. For a woman, it’s a sign of failure to be a divorcee. For a mother it’s also a sign of failure; that she did not bring up her daughter properly to be a good wife. In every culture, I believe divorce is a taboo. We are beginning to see a situation in the North where people query the background of a man that divorces his wife. And there have been instances in which parents told men that have divorced their wives that ‘you can’t marry our daughter’.
Some women forget they are married when they are in politics or are successful. They don’t think about the institution and the demands of marriage, the respect and understanding they should give to their husbands. This is one of the major causes of divorce.
Q: Could you suggest how to tackle these cases of divorce rampant in the North?
A: Everything is provided in the Holy Qu’ran for Muslims – how they should live their lives – and as long as we don’t live our lives the way our religion dictates, we will have problems.
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