S-African
women married to Nigerians threaten protest
JOHANNESBURG — South African women
married to Nigerians, yesterday, threatened to stage mass protest in
Johannesburg to stop discrimination against them, their husbands and children.
Mrs Lindelwa Uche, the chairperson of the
United Nigerian Wives in South Africa, UNWISA, made this known in an interview
with the News Agency of Nigeria during the launch. Uche said that South African
society did not take their marriage to Nigerians as serious relationships.
She said: “Our society does not take our
marriages serious; they see our marriages as relations of convenience and
perceive us as evil to the society.
“All of us are South Africans married to
Nigerians living in South Africa, we decided to come together to fight against
stigmatisation, discrimination, and humiliation, against our families by
government departments and agency and the officials of the government, the
community and our-in-laws.”
The chairperson said an earlier protest march
by the members of the association had not generated any response from the Home
affairs office.
“We protested against discrimination from home
affairs officials in March this year, and since after that protest we have not
received any response from the government. We felt before we embark on any
further action we should come together and form an association registered by
law.
“After the official launch of our association,
our next action will be more than just a protest march to the city of
Johannesburg home affairs office. It is going to be a protest where we will
strip on the street of Johannesburg, so that people and government will know
that there is an existing body and that we are not happy with the way our non
South Africans husband and children are being treated.
“We also plan to carry our protest to Nigeria,
we know that some South Africans also have businesses in Nigeria, if it is
necessary we will take actions that will stop South Africa businesses operating
in Nigeria. Indeed we are ready to go that far.
“We have been quiet for so long but we cannot take
it anymore, for the sake of the future of our children, we have to put an end
to this discrimination.”
She said there was need for them to
collectively tackle the issue of some Nigerians residing in South Africa being
unfairly separated from their families due to pending residence permit that
eventually lead to deportations.
“If we don’t stand up as daughter of the soil
and fight discrimination against our marriages who will, if we don’t stand up
and fight for the rights of our husbands when they are being violated and
treated shabbily by officials of the government and citizens alike who will.
“If we don’t stand up for our children when
they are being called derogatory names like “Small lee kwere-kwere” or turning
their natives names upside down deliberately by our community in the name of
making them feel like aliens, outcast, and unwelcome, or even when their
Nigerian aunties and uncles call them bustards, then their future is in
jeopardy.
“If we don’t stand up when our countrymen and
women, officials and in-law address us as paper wives, gold diggers, stupid and
opportunist, who will do that for us,” Uche queried.
She said the notion that all Nigerians are
criminals must be corrected.
“We are in a country of law and order, if
anyone is found guilty let the law take its course, we are not saying Nigerians
are good or bad, even in the South Africa
society, there are criminals and indeed there is no country in the world that
does not have criminals,’’ Uche said.
Ikechkwu Anyene, President of the Nigeria
Union in South Africa (NUSA), said the association is a good initiative by the
women who are suffering discrimination and humiliation because they are married
to Nigerians.
“We at the NUSA have been working with them
even before the association was registered as a body; we were with them when
they carried a protest match to the home affairs office in Johannesburg,
“We will continue to support them to achieve
their goal which is to put an end to discrimination by the government officials
and their brothers and sisters towards them for being married to Nigerian.
“The initiative is also to unite Nigeria and
South Africa and indeed the whole of Africa, to see each other as brothers
and sisters and to ensure that we stand by one another,” Anyene said.
He, however, advised the body to carry along
all South Africans married to Nigerians irrespective of their tribe and
geo-political zone and the tribe of their husbands.
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