SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN MARRIED TO NIGERIANS PROTEST AGAINST DISCRIMINATION

JOHANNESBURG —  South African
women married to Nigerians, 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 of the
association, Sunday, in Johannesburg.
Uche said that South African society did
not take their marriage to Nigerians as
serious relationships.
Some South African women married to
Nigerians staged a peaceful protest in
Johannesburg.
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 can’t 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 shabily 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.
Source Vanguard