‘Why violence against women persist in Nigeria’

The Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Women Trust Fund (NWTF), Ms. Mufuliat Fijabi, has said that rape and other forms of violence against women and girls persist in Nigeria because offenders were not punished and many did also not see it as a human rights issue.

She said this in Abuja at the “National Conference on Violence Against Women and Girls: A Challenge to Women’s Political Leadership”, organised by the NWTF and Ford Foundation.

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She also said that the organisation was making public the findings of its research on the root causes of violence against women and girls in Nigeria in four focal states of Adamawa, Nasarawa, Cross River and FCT.

“This is also a coincidence that the period coincides with the 16-day of activism against gender-based violence. We are putting forward this publication because we want more people to understand that violence against women and girls is violation of human right and is something that we all need to dig deeper to understand and realise the causes of violence against women and girls.

“We would continue to talk about violence as a violation of human rights of women and girls until they stopped. And for it to stop, we need to do a deeper analysis and get a better understanding of why violence occurs both in public and private domains, because we want it to come to an end,” Fijabi said.

She also emphasized that COVID-19 pandemic has come and that all can the different dimensions of its effects, but that unfortunately, there was an increase in the cases of violence against women and girls globally, resulting from the lockdown because couples, neighbour who ordinarily would be out working were all locked down to be able to curtail the spread of the COVID-19.

She said, “So, we saw how closer relationship within homes and the public could lead to escalation of violence against women and girls, which means that the occurrence of these acts was just waiting to explode. So, if this has happened, it means that we need to double our efforts to ensure that it no longer happened.

“We need adequate protection. We need adequate support for our women and girls because they are part of the integral parts of the society and any society that wishes to advance and be a good and well-developed society need to recognize that no human being is qualified for violence let alone women and girls. So, this must stop.”

The event which was also attended by other participants virtually had contributions fromMs. Boladale Shobowale of the Ford Foundation; Ms. Ngozi Nwosu, Vision Spring Initiatives (VSI); Ms. Emilia Okon, Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), Cross River State and Ms. Fatima Wakili, VAWG, Adamawa State among others, who unanimously call for the strengthening and implementation of punishments for offenders and cogent protection for the women and girls in the country.