During the edit training last week, when some trainees were editing, others were on their way to make another documentary. It's about sexual harassment at secondary and tertiary schools.

Although very few official numbers are available, it is known that in Nigeria in higher educational institutions lecturers often make unwanted sexual advances, request sexual favors from female students, or commit acts of sexual violence. Already within the group of trainees almost all of them recalled stories about female class mates being harassed by their teacher. Some of them experienced it themselves. Though the topic was not covered in one of their own documentaries, all of them agreed that it was important enough to make a separate one.

The documentary covers the story of some of the trainees. But also experiences of girls who are still in school, a testimony of a female principal who tries to prevent sexual harassment at her school, and a teacher providing information about her fellow teachers who actually harassed some of the students. It actually sheds a light on how teachers can continue harassing girls for a long period of time.

One of the interviewees is a young woman who told us about her experiences in secondary school. When she was 17 one of the teachers got her phone number and started calling her to come over to his place in the evening. She refused and as a revanche, the teacher flogged her in class terribly. She didn't dear telling anybody about it, because she felt ashamed. Not much later also the vice-principal tried to coerce her in having sex with him. She regrets that she didn't dare telling anyone, because she fears that even more girls got harassed by that same teacher and vice-principal.

In government schools hardly any official structures are available to prevent or punish teachers. It is not uncommon that teachers actually conspire in harassing girls, protect each other, and just deny everything - like happened to some of the girls. Because any punishment is lacking they feel free to do whatever they like. And because of the strong African tradition of respecting elders, the girls are often not supported but instead accused of leading the teachers on. Tactics the girls use to prevent themselves from being harassed by teachers were for example: keep your legs together, don't wear make-up, keep quiet, et cetera. Students perceive the harassment as a 'normal phenomenon', and most of them view it as a 'normal' part of school life one has to endure.

But this burden shouldn't be on the girls. So we are very pleased that some of them were actually brave enough to explain in front of the camera what happened to them and what impact it had on their lives. To at least open up a little bit about what is going on in schools - besides education itself.

As a final closure of our training we went with one of our trainees Ese, (who is a lawyer), for a trip to Odi. It is about an hour drive from Yenagoa, Niger Delta. We did a follow up on a law case for our general documentary about an old woman that had fought for 19 years to get back her property. Her husband wanted to divorce her and was after her house. He already sold other property that belonged to the both of them.
It is a typical story that shows how women's rights are still violated in many places in Nigeria.When a woman has property of her own and she is married, whenever the couple gets a divorce, according to local tradition half of it (usually more) will belong to her husband. When a man has property of his own, his belongings will stay his own. This shows that men and women, according to traditional law and custom, are not equal. The only way a woman can fight this is to go to High Court. But it is very expensive, because you have to pay lawyers and all other expenses. Lots of women just accept these laws because they see no other way. Even when their husband dies, his brothers and family take everything away from her and leave the woman empty handed, with her children.
Now this woman in Odi was a very good businesswoman and earned quite some money. One of the things she traded was Kaikai, a local very strong booze made from palm trees. She and her husband had built a house in Lagos and had other properties, in her husband’s name. But this house in Port Harcourt was hers; she had bought the land, paid for building it and everything else. She was smart by putting all legal documents in her name and keeping it from her husband. You can imagine how sad she was when her ex-husband claimed for it. Because of financial and moral support from her family she could take the case to court. But her husband and his lawyer frustrated the case and it was put aside quite a number of times for being "unimportant"...
So it took 19 years before the judge gave her verdict, the house belonged to this woman and to no one else. By that time she was already 76 years old and became too ill (she had a stroke) to be able to enjoy it. 
So we went to Odi, which is a very beautiful town next to the River Nun and portrayed this strong woman who is now 78 and suffers from memory loss. She stole our hearts and so did her family. They gave us their stories but also a tour along the river, fresh pawpaw (sort of papaya), coconuts and a bottle of Kaikai... 
So cheers to Mrs. Tutu

Last but not least it's time for the girls to learn some edit skills, so they really can make their own documentaries. There is a first time for everything and 'same same' they were holding the camera like babies and not knowing what to do, they sat behind the computer screens looking very puzzled. What to do all these different parts of the programme?

They're using Final Cut Express - and with the programme came a very 'user-friendly' manual. But actually it is all about learning by doing. So we skipped the manual pretty quickly and just put them at work. Cut the nicest parts from your interview and pace them in the order of your edit script.

Finally they understood why their initial script and their edit script were so important. "While listening to the interviews, I keep on hearing more interesting quotes to tell a different story." Ok, back to the basics: What is the story you want to tell? And what quotes help you with telling your story?

All of them are taking turns and are able to edit for a couple of hours each day. After the initial tsunami of questions, the girls pretty soon knew how to handle the programme and understood the way how to build up a story. It's amazing how much they learn each day. So much concentration..

We spent the last couple of days at the LNG Residential Area. The RA looks very much like the movie 'The Truman Show'. It has everything: a hospital, a Park&Shop, a water tower, a bar, a swimming pool, a golf course, even a primary school. But where are the people?

The deal we made before we came to Bonny island, was that we would teach some people how to take photographs. Miriam bought a Canon Rebel camera with two lenses and wanted the staff to learn more about it before they could take the camera into the field. So, we brushed up our basic photography knowledge and give class to two very eager students. It brings us to places where we normaly could never come. Like the lighthouse settlement, a place near the ocean, named after a lighthouse of course. A large group of people live here, sometimes for a many years already. They live from the ocean, from fishing. When we arrived they were actually waiting for the tide to come in.