THE SORROWS OF RESPONSE
Isn’t it hilarious that the only “protection” for human rights defenders is fleeing the country? What if I don’t want to be fleeing? What if what pursues me does not require abandoning my entire family? Perhaps I just need to lie low for a while. What if what pursues me is illness gotten in the line of duty?
Well, unfortunately, there are no funds for that. You either flee the country, or you fund yourself. My experience responding to cases of people in vulnerable populations has left me wondering what the difference is, between me and these people, right down to period poverty.
As a human rights defender, I am to help others access justice, which sounds very grand, until you come right down to it, and realize that I am a human being also, but both funders and survivors dehumanize responders and assume that we are alright. That is not okay, and that is not alright.
Such was my story. Having stayed in the hospital for 25 nights and 26 days to look after a survivor with Tuberculosis, and wearing masks even to sleep, my immunity went low after about two weeks, and I caught the pox. It was important that I evacuated the hospital during this period because sickness makes one’s immunity low.
The last thing you want is low immunity around a TB patient you have been sharing living space with, for nearly a month. However, I couldn’t leave immediately, because I was a squatter. Surely, it is only ungrateful to bring home such a communicable disease to the people who chose to take me in. And so I waited until the poxes started to dry up. And when I decided to leave, my organization could only afford isolation for me, for a week, although I needed longer. The accommodation also came with one meal a day, and a noisy AC. Each day, I would turn on the AC with hopes that it would freeze the hunger in my belly till evening when I would finally eat my one meal of the day. After a week, I went to a friend’s place to spend another week, still isolating, myself because my original place of residence had a small child living in it, with a weaker immune system than an adult. So no, I couldn’t go home until about 2 weeks after leaving the hospital.
By the time I resumed work, my colleagues were scared of coming close to me, because I’d just had the pox. It took a week for them to get used to coming close to me again. In all these, no funding organization could help me in any way, because I couldn’t fit the box of “protection” or whatever kind of funding they had.
All I remember is rolling on the ground of a public hospital nearly naked, trying to find respite from the burning itching on my body. A public hospital floor is not really the kind of spot where you should be rolling, but I was in too much pain to care. And the floors of not just any ward, but the isolation ward, where the most communicable cases including COVID-19 and Lassa fever are sent.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, throughout the period of my convalescence, I was constantly harassed by the hospital officials to come and pay the hospital bills. I got calls from the hospital for different kinds of things, including new tests, food, and most importantly, bill payment, at any time of the day. I’ve gotten calls as early as 6 am, and as late as 10 pm. I was shouted at, emotionally blackmailed, and whatever other “bill payment” tactics, for money that I didn’t have. Money that we were apparently “ineligible” to access funding for. I ran mad with calls, regained my sanity, rinse and repeat, a couple of times(Non-Stop calls for 3 months over the same matter, will do that to a person). There is a saying, “No peace for the wicked”. What wickedness had I committed, that I was so devoid of peace? People go all grammatical and say SGBV response is a “thankless job”, but I don’t think they really understand the meaning of those words, if not there would be funding for these things. And all these happened in Abuja where people like to say “Abuja has funding”, so I can only imagine what responders in small towns are going through.
As a human rights defender, only God, or whatever else you believe in can protect you. Depend on funding at your own peril, because your trauma just may not fit the box. And yes, thepox is fatal. A patient died from it shortly after I left.
~Elizabeth Enu-akan~ a First responder who worked with The Dorothy Njemanze Foundation
You can support the ongoing efforts of the Dorothy Njemanze Foundation (DNF) in assisting survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in Nigeria and protecting first responders. Donations are greatly appreciated.
Contributions can be made to DNF at Zenith Bank with Account Number: 1014857963.
For immediate assistance or more information, we can be reached on the DNF Hotline at 08147553343 or 07013333307 or inquiries for partnerships and collaborations can be directed to info@dnf.org.ng
