It is now no longer news that women in Kalabari kingdom and other coastal communities in Niger Delta have been abandoned by their men folk after getting them impregnated. The increasing number of absentee husband in Kalabari land majority of the women allude to cultural life style where the men engage the ladies without performing marital rites as required by the customs and tradition of Ijaw people thus leaving the women to raise their children without any meaningful contribution by their husbands who are always on the move from location to location in search of profitable Fishing Ports along the coastal area of the Atlantic Ocean as inhabited by Ijaw people of Niger Delta region.
In a recent survey conducted by International Federation of women Lawyers Association-FIDA during an advocacy visit reveals that a lot of women in Kalabari kingdom are catering for their children all alone without any assistance from those who they begot the children with. The responsibilities of feeding, paying school fees, payment of House rent and clothing all is being carried out by the women. While their husbands are said to be absent from taking up these responsibilities which make the Kalabari women bread-winners in the various families. It is a common knowledge that women move into swamps with their canoes to pick Periwinkles, Oysters and other sea-foods for sales, gather small fishes from the creeks and take them to the market just to earn a living from which proceeds to take care of the family responsibilities.
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In the investigation as revealed by FIDA in Rivers state South-South Nigeria the Kalabari women are calling for jail terms for their absentee husbands as most annoying is the fact that after keeping women with them without maintenance for more 20-to 30 years the men still divorce them for younger ladies who they also put in the same condition as the elderly women. With this scenario maintenance of social justice is herculean as core family values and nurturing cum decent child-upbringing is now sole responsibility left for the women to carry out alone. Hence social vices abound in the riverine/coastal communities where breeding cultists and gangsters with several social deviants has become a norm. And it cost a lot for both state and National government to put up Amnesty programmes to retrain and rehabilitate these youngsters whose early childhood upbringing must have been lost due to poor parenting and inadequate nurturing.