Women and the War on Boko Haram by Matfess Hilary

Author:Matfess, Hilary
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: National Book Network International
Published: 2017-04-07T04:00:00+00:00

A note on divorce in Boko Haram

Somewhat unexpectedly, divorce appears to be relatively common in Boko Haram – and can be initiated by women. Interestingly, even after a man demands (or grants) a divorce, he is still responsible for the well-being of his ex-wife until she is remarried. Talking of her first husband, Zainab recalled that, even after she divorced him, he had to take care of her. That was custom. She lived in his house and he gave her food and money, even after he accepted that she was going through with the divorce. While she was observing a period of isolation called iddah prior to re-entering the marriage market, Zainab mobilised her female friends to help her find a new partner. She remembered: ‘I told my friends, “I am beginning iddah, you need to spread the word that I am looking for a new husband.”’ Thanks to her friends’ efforts, ‘three or four men were waiting for me immediately after I finished iddah’. Zainab remembered that: ‘I picked the one who gave me the best gifts.’106 Only then was the husband that she had left relieved of his burden to provide for her.

Fati Abubakar, a humanitarian worker, writer and the photojournalist behind the Bits of Borno project from Maiduguri, asserts that these practices ‘seem like a throwback to Kanuri culture’, perhaps reflecting the overrepresentation of the Kanuri in the insurgency’s leadership and early membership.107 The Kanuri are a largely Muslim ethnic group concentrated in the area around Lake Chad, with members in Chad, Niger and Cameroon as well as Nigeria. Early anthropological work done by Ronald Cohen confirms Abubakar’s observation; in ‘Marriage Instability among the Kanuri of Northern Nigeria’, Cohen observes that ‘divorce is looked upon as an unfortunate break-down in inter-personal relations’, but also that ‘all informants feel that the institution of divorce is a good and desirable practice. They laughed at and decried any hypothetical situation in which divorce is not a practicable possibility in marriage.’108 The practice of actively seeking a husband following a divorce is also observed in Cohen’s review of Kanuri marital practices, in which he observes that ‘a divorced woman ought to be looking for a husband. If she is obviously not doing so and publicly states her desire to remain singly, she is looked upon as a loose woman or a prostitute.’109 Although this similarity between Kanuri practices and Boko Haram operational characteristics might be coincidental, it is worth noting that it is not the only such similarity. Wife seclusion, called nyia kule (in Kanuri), was also practised by the Kanuri. On the issue of wife seclusion, Cohen notes that: ‘[W]hether or not he can do without his wife’s labor outside the compound on his farm plots, or at the well obtaining water, every Kanuri man expects and hopes that his wife or wives will leave the compound as little as possible.’110

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