Domestic and gender-based violence in Nigeria is a problem as in many parts of Africa. Historically, in many cultures domestic violence has been an accepted fact of life. In recent years, however, violence against women in Nigerian has begun to be viewed as a criminal problem, as the case is increasing and is raising a lot of concern especially regarding the victims.
This act is carried out with the intention of physical or emotionally harming another person who is related to you by blood, present or prior marriage or common law marriage; having or allegedly having a child in common (family resueing).
Violence against women goes beyond beatings. It includes forced marriage, dowry-related violence, marital rape, sexual harassment, intimidation at work and in educational institutions, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, forced sterilization, trafficking and forced prostitution. At least 144 countries have passed laws on domestic violence, and 154 have laws on sexual harassment. Experts believed that, there are six distinct forms of violence: physical violence; sexual violence; emotional violence; psychological violence; spiritual violence; and cultural violence.
Under domestic conflict, individual residents in a house routinely struggle to maximize their own benefits in form of unlimited use of shared facilities. Domestic conflict is an incident of the home that involves abuse, scolding, yelling, booing, and sometimes physical assault between a house-owner and household member(s) or among household members (female and male children), between a house-owner and tenants, or among tenants.
Domestic and gender-based violence is not an isolated occurrence in families, but is broadly relevant to notions of risky family environment that may relate to children’s adjustment problem or negative pathways in children’s development. It has significant effects not only on adult but also on children through direct exposure to it, changes in parenting, family relationship and multiple family problems such as parental depression and alcohol problems. Violent behavior often is caused by an interaction of situational and individual factors, which implies that abusers learn violent behavior from their family, people in their community and other cultural influences as they grow up, because they may have seen violence often or they may have been victims themselves.
Psychological violence may involve acts such as verbal assaults, shouting, belittling and humiliation with the intent of causing harm within an intimate relationship. Economic or financial abuse includes stealing from or defrauding an intimate partner, withholding money for essential things like food and medical treatment, manipulating or exploiting family member for financial gain, preventing an intimate partner from working or controlling their choice of occupation. While, emotional abuse among spouses involves criticism, social isolation, manipulation to control, consistently making unreasonable demands, intimidation and impairment of one’s sense of self-worth. It is also a pattern of verbal assaults by one’s spouse that consist of repeated insults, ridicule or name-calling as well as repeated threats to cause emotional pain. The World Health Organization (WHO) postulate intimate partner violence as any behavior within an intimate relationship by an intimate partner that causes physical, psychological, or sexual harm to those in the relationship. It is one of the most common types of violence experienced by women.
Most reported cases of intimate partner violence are perpetrated by men towards women; although men can be victims of intimate partner violence. Violence against women is associated with immediate and long-term adverse health outcomes for women and children, both directly and indirectly. Physical violence and corporal punishment within the household are widely accepted as a way of instilling discipline in a child It is even regarded as part of the socialisation process in the home, and children are unaware that is reprehensible.
Gender based violence is a common social challenge in the Northern parts of Nigeria. The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women in July 2017 expressed concern that the Boko Haram insurgency had forcefully displaced women and girls, disrupted their means of livelihood and education, separated them from families, and exposed them to sexual violence and other kinds of abuse. There is a lax enforcement of violence against women laws and the protections are uneven across the states. A section of the penal code applicable in Northern Nigeria permits wife battery as chastisement if grievous harm is not indicted.
Wife beating seems to be the most prevalent of physical violence towards women, perhaps because in many places corporal punishment for wives “is widely sanctioned as a form of discipline.” Hence, when men beat their wives they “believe they are instilling discipline in them (as women) are regarded as children who can be prone to indiscipline if not ‘disciplined.'” Unfortunately, in some places like Nigeria, the women themselves “believe that physical abuse is most times justified,” thus buttressing the fact that women are sometimes guardians of patriarchy.
Ronke Shonde, a banker and mother of two, was beaten to death by her husband, Lekan Shonde, in Lagos. A manhunt for Mr. Shonde, who fled the murder scene, was launched.
Before taking his wife’s life, Mr. Shonde used to “tie her, beat her and take her mobile phones away,” according to a neighbor.
In this setting, most women bear the pain and grieve in silence believing that one day the man will have a change of heart and amend his ways. The stigma and the shame it will elicit also contributes to the silence.
Dr Perpetua Mbanefo was just getting ready to drive to her new internship in Lagos when her husband suddenly got upset, seizing her car keys and medical licence in 2018. “He said I am becoming too free. Then I asked him for my things back and he got very upset, dragged me and threatened to stab me with a broken bottle.”
Women, whether married or single, condone various degrees of abuse for reasons such as no source of income, the fear of losing custody of the children, exposure to information, low self-esteem, stigmatization and many more. More often than not, the woman is prevailed upon to be forgiving regardless of the ordeal she undergoes daily or the scars she has tattooed all over her body. Most heart-wrenching is that fact that sometimes the physical trauma, the psychological torture and the emotional disenchantment transforms a once beautiful and loving woman into a recluse.
In Ekiti State, south-west Nigeria, policemen brutalized Toyin Adeyeye, a nursing mother who recently returned from the US. She and her two-month-old baby were returning from the market when they were stopped at a police check point. The police asked for bribe. Not having done anything wrong, she offered the officers nothing. The angry police officers beat her up. She claimed she lost personal belongings, $750 cash, while the officers seized her car. Also detained was the women’s younger brother and driver of the vehicle.
Religion and religious institutions which seem to be an important place of refuge in the lives of most Nigerians have contributed directly or indirectly to the beliefs about domestic violence. Most of the times, victims are asked to endure the pain and accept it as the will of God as marriages are for better and for worse and till death do us part, meaning divorce is not an option. Some religious practices argued that a husband is the head of the family and has the right to discipline erring members of the family. The problem in this kind of scenario is who defines the boundary as to what is discipline and what is violence.
Findings from a National Survey carried out in 2014 on Violence Against Children in Nigeria confirmed one in four females reported experiencing sexual violence in childhood with approximately 70% reporting more than one incident of sexual violence. In the same study, it was found that 24.8% of females’ ages 18 to 24 years experienced sexual abuse prior to age 18 of which 5.0% sought help, with only 3.5% receiving any services.
Educational imbalance, coupled with poverty and ignorance, has lead to persistent practice in certain parts of Nigeria where children and teenagers, instead of being in the classroom, are used for street hawking of petty wares by their parents or “care givers”, thus making them vulnerable to sexual exploitation and abuse. One in four Nigerian girls is sexually abused before age 18, and a majority of offenders are never prosecuted, according to the U.N. children’s fund, UNICEF.
Prior to COVID19, Nigeria was known for a high incidence of gender-based violence. A UNICEF study revealed that one in four girls (and one in ten boys) experienced sexual violence before the age of 18. There have been widespread verified reports of sexual exploitation and abuse of women and girls in northern Nigeria by camp officials, vigilante members and soldiers. The sex for grades scandal of 2019 and the resistance of the Academic Staff Union of Universities to a bill to address sextortion in tertiary institutions is a recent example of a culture of abuse of power.
Particularly in Delta State, violence against women and girls incidents often occur within the context of domestic, criminal and cult violence; with women being both targets as well as innocent bystanders swept up in the general insecurity.
The physiological consequences of abuse, whether physical, physiological or sexual, are more difficult to identify, as they can be immediate or latent and last for years. Victims can display emotional wounds like low self-esteem, a long-lasting lack of confidence in people and depression.
The effects of intimate partner violence impact on other areas of family life such as pregnancy loss, psychological traumatization of the children, economic consequences and death. Domestic violence in private or within the family affects the marital stability, as well as the physical and psychological well-being of the women. It can also create mistrust and decrease the confidence the women have in adults’ ability to help them. While family elders often ignored domestic violence victims’ reports.
Domestic and gender-based violence COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns
The recent lockdowns imposed by the federal and states governments across the country to curtail the spread of coronavirus, has caused a spike in incidents that target women and children, activists say. This is because the restrictions have forced vulnerable persons to stay more closely to their attackers.
Inadequate coordination amongst key stakeholders and poor implementation of legal frameworks, combined with entrenched gender discriminatory norms, has hampered government and civil society efforts to address gender-based violence. These efforts have been further compromised by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The most common gender-based violence reports recorded have been spousal violence, landlord-tenant violence, neighbour-to-neighbour violence, and parent-children abuse. Others are homeowner-house help violence, boyfriend-girlfriend violence, violence on widows, police-sex worker violence, police-citizen violence, visitor-caught-in-lock-down child rape. Most states have since relaxed the restrictions but many offices and schools have yet to fully reopen.
The Lagos State government-run Domestic and Gender Violence Response Team noted that, it has been inundated with increased reports of sexual and domestic violence since the lockdown started late March, 2020. There have been a 60 percent increase in domestic violence, 30 percent rise in sexual violence, and 10 percent increase in physical child abuse, report noted.
Most reports about the shadow pandemic relate to spikes in domestic violence, which is the most prevalent form of Sexual and gender-based violence . One night in May, Amanda Basinbo’s husband attacked her with an axe, slashing her face and cracking her skull for “denying him sex.” A friend’s neighbor has had hot soup poured on her and her head bashed with a sink by her partner. She is deaf in one ear and covered in scars from the constant beatings. In April, an 18-year-old known only as Jennifer was allegedly attacked and raped by a gang of five men in Kaduna, a city in northern Nigeria.
Meanwhile, a 16-year-old high school student called Tina Ezekwe was shot and killed after police opened fire at a bus stop in Lagos, the country’s biggest city, during a nighttime coronavirus curfew. There was also a case involving a Nigerian man who beat his wife and then posted her bloodied photos to Facebook, daring police to arrest him. The stories are endless.
In contrast, conflict resolution techniques varied amongst couples with some having no arbitrators, while others turned to relatives, traditional rulers, clergymen, friends, and a small number used the police for this. Victims of these incidents face additional challenges with the lack of structural social service systems in place in Nigeria, access to hotlines and shelters. Also, civil society groups and nongovernment organizations specialized in providing support and legal expertise are few.
In order to reduce the cases of violence against women, Nigeria adopted in 2006 a Framework and Plan of Action for the National Gender Policy. Consequently, the federal and state governments adopted several legislative and policy instruments, including The Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act of 2015, which prohibits female genital mutilation, harmful widowhood practices, harmful traditional practices and all forms of violence against persons in both private and public life.
Victims are often prevailed on to keep the details of such acts secret
The criminal justice system also fails to protect the victims of domestic violence in most cases. The role of law enforcement is crucial, especially the police, is crucial. In Nigeria, it is not uncommon for rape to go unreported. Some victims and their families, fearing stigmatisation, police extortion and a lack of trust in the judicial process, choose not to report cases to the authorities.
There have also been instances where those brave enough to report are targeted with derogatory comments at the police station. Prosecutorial agencies like the police have also been accused of hampering the chances of victims getting a fair hearing in court.
The lockdown has also compromised access to life-saving services and justice at a time when these are needed most. The walking distance to the police station and delayed response from the police is a big challenge.
Many one-stop centres and domestic abuse shelters have been forced to close or provide limited services. Strict movement restrictions have meant that survivors are unable to access centres and shelters, having to rely on hotlines to receive any kind of support.
As resources are diverted towards the pandemic response, access to justice and other forms of legal redress for survivors risk becoming increasingly difficult. Police officers in the Family and Support Units have been mobilised to support in enforcing the lockdown, leading to shrinking capacity to respond to calls of gender-based violence.
Many court proceedings have been postponed, which will limit the system’s ability to issue protection and restraining orders that would otherwise have an immediate impact on protecting victims. There will also likely be a backlog of cases, hampering the quality of judiciary procedures in the future.
Panacea for the ugly phenomenon
Domestic and Gender-based violence prevention, risk mitigation and response in emergencies needs should be put established. A global repository of knowledge on what works to prevent violence has been built up over the last decade. The time to look at how the stakeholders can learn from and adapt this knowledge to our own context is now.
Some elements that offer the means to the prevention of sexual assault in the community are important highlights especially where the means – expertise and facilities – for managing cases of sexual assault is grossly inadequate. These concepts, though are applicable universally, are however discussed in the context of the developing world and with particular emphasis on the Nigerian situation.
Public enlightenment has been shown to be a critical tool in changing behaviour, attitude, beliefs and value system of people. Therefore there should be intense public enlightenment and education at schools, social clubs, cultural group gatherings, churches, mosques and through the media, to first of all, demystify the myths about domestic violence. These myths inform the way many people think about domestic violence, and because they are in the background unconsciously influencing people’s thoughts, the false assumptions may be seen as being true.
State and federal task forces or committees on COVID19 must prioritise prevention of and response to gender-based violence. States should categorise gender-based violence organisations as essential and provide them with passes and items to enable better hygiene and protection. States must also channel public funds towards providing urgent support for alternate accommodation, feeding and health care of survivors, and this should be transparent and publicly reported on.
Where necessary, police should facilitates the arrest or investigation process to ensure that the domestic violence case is charged to court or the suspect is remanded for a case of defilement or sexual assault.
If the victim or survivor needs other reliefs, like empowerment, relocation, or perhaps the education of a child is affected, or the child may need to be moved to another school. Other reliefs may include the use of restraining order to restrain the abuser from perpetuating any other forms of violence.
There is need for an easy reporting template for organisations working with survivors including women’s rights activists, civil society organisations, the police, and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). This information should be analysed by one central body, ideally the NHRC working with women’s rights activists. The NHRC should work closely with the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons which, under the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act 2015, is required to submit annual reports on the implementation of the Act. Authorities should extend those rights to all “without distinction” and end arrests, detention and prosecutions based on real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity.
Domestic and gender-based violence must always be reported – not only by survivors but by neighbours, family and friends – and use traditional and new media to disseminate details of where to seek help, what help is available, and how to engage survivors. All too often we see personal details of survivors indicating that we need more public education on the importance of anonymity, confidentiality and not blaming survivors. Screening will be a safe and cost-effective means for identifying women experiencing intimate partner violence, leading to appropriate interventions that will decrease further exposure to such act and its adverse health consequences.
Education of children, especially the girl child, goes a long way in boosting the socio-economic and sociocultural status of women in the society. This in the run long will inherently empower women who are often disadvantaged by the undue attention paid to the education of male children over their female counterparts especially in the developing countries such as Nigeria. Child and women trafficking with the attendant risk of sexual assault and exploitation would be greatly curtailed if equal opportunity and free formal education is provided for all children.
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