Category: #zanews

Producers of two African-made films premiering on Netflix this month believe their work will show there’s subscriber appetite for movies that go deeper than the Hollywood stereotypes that often make African viewers groan.

Subscribers to the world’s largest streaming service can now watch Poacher, a Kenyan drama about elephant poaching and, a Nigerian thriller about a journalist whose world falls apart after she goes undercover as a sex worker.

The films avoid the simplistic portrayals that viewers in Africa often resent, the producers say.

Netflix has begun screening more content produced in Africa, and in June released romantic comedy “Cook Off”, Zimbabwe’s first offering on the streaming service.

Poacher, the first Kenyan film released on Netflix, uses drama to show the lives of everyday people involved in poaching.

“It’s very simple to point fingers,” said Davina Leonard, who co-wrote, co-produced, and stars in Poacher. “When you start a drama, now you’re looking at the people and their motivations.”

The film’s other star, Brian Ogola, hopes Poacher will spur people to action.

“It’s still not enough if we want our grandchildren to see some of these animals in their natural habitat.”

The film ends with a statistic from the World Wildlife Foundation: if current trends continue, elephants will be extinct by 2040. The other movie, joins a host of Nigerian films on the platform, which has nearly 193 million subscribers globally.

Was shot on the gritty streets and in rundown homes of Lagos. It tells the story of impoverished sex workers lured into being trafficked overseas. Human Rights Watch ranks Nigeria a top origin country of trafficking victims in Europe and elsewhere.

In one scene, a businessman drugs and rapes the undercover journalist at a party. In another, sex workers endure a voodoo initiation to scare them into loyalty to pimps trafficking them to Italy.

“I am very happy that this conversation has started so that the government will sit up to their responsibility, so that the agencies that are tasked with fighting human trafficking in Nigeria will maybe clamour for more funding or sit up and do better,” said co-producer James Amuta.

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Schools in Kenya are only partially reopening now after a seven-month closure. While many children have been home with their parents, in a small village in Kenya, a 71-year-old retired teacher and Girl Child Rights activist had to shelter at least 24 children, among them 22 girls who feared if they returned home, they would either be circumcised or married off.

At the Nanana Winbridge Rescue School in Kenya’s Kajiado County, SABC News met the 71-year-old veteran teacher and educational expert Priscillah Nangurai:

When the Kenyan government ordered all schools closed in March this year to control the spread of COVID-19, Nangurai, founder of the Nanana Rescue Centre, quickly realised she could not completely shut her doors as 24 pupils had nowhere to go to.

“We only remained with the girls who refused to go home, you know, we don’t allow girls to go back home unless they say yes. Even after reconciliation, they are those who ran from FGM and they said this time they are going to take advantage of this time and so they refused to go. The girls are 22 and then two boys, so 24.”

Her institution, which started off as a school soon after she retired, has since turned into a shelter for girls running away from traditional harmful practices in their communities including Female Circumcision also known as FGM, and forced marriages.

“We have had girls who have gone back home and the day you arrive home, if you ran from FGM, they do it the day you arrive. Those who have succeeded are those who stayed on…they can say no strongly, keeping them here is a challenge, but for us, we know there is success in the end,” Nangurai says.

Even as she happily chats with those who remained behind, her mind is on those that the prolonged closure as a result of COVID-19 has claimed.

“Unfortunately, one is circumcised, but she is not rescued and I have word that from one area three of them are pregnant and I am afraid. I am waiting to see how many are coming.”

For more than 40 years, Nangurai has advocated for the education of the girl child. In 2019, Kenya announced a 2022 target to end Female Circumcision but Nangurai says she has her doubts.

“I have my doubts; FGM is too deep. Sometimes, you feel you are fighting a losing battle but it’s not good to give up, but pray and hope what you are doing will benefit thousands of girls.”

As she watches those she rescued this time, it is clear the battle is not lost.

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Nigeria’s army says it is ready to maintain law and order and deal decisively with any situation created by “trouble makers”, while demonstrators calling for an end to police brutality promise to keep up nationwide protests.

Protesters have staged daily marches for a week, calling for an overhaul of police forces.

Police have responded to the demonstrations with beatings, tear gas and gunfire, which human rights group Amnesty International said had killed at least 10 people.

Police agreed on Tuesday to stop using force against protesters.

The disbanding of SARS is only the first step in our commitment to extensive police reforms in order to ensure that the primary duty of the police and other law enforcement agencies remains the protection of lives and livelihood of our people. pic.twitter.com/XjQMSr3jlm

— Muhammadu Buhari (@MBuhari) October 12, 2020

The military, which in recent years has repeatedly been accused of human rights abuses that it has denied, issued a statement late on Wednesday titled “Nigerian Army warns subversive elements and trouble makers”.

“The NA (Nigerian Army) is ready to fully support the civil authority in whatever capacity to maintain law and order and deal with any situation decisively,” it said in the statement, which did not mention the anti-police protests.

In response to the protests, the head of Nigeria’s police force on Sunday dissolved the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a unit that demonstrators have long accused of beatings, killings and extortion.

Demonstrators have called for more meaningful reforms. Protesters say they fear a new unit, whose creation to “fill the gaps” left by SARS was announced on Tuesday, was just are branding of the controversial squad.

Nigerian protests against police brutality:

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