Gender-based Violence

By Ummi Umar

I write with a broken heart. A heart so bruised it feels shattered. There is no day I open Instagram, X, or WhatsApp without stumbling on another story that tears at the soul, another reminder that insecurity, banditry, and sheer lawlessness have become a constant shadow over this country. It almost never gets better for us.

For weeks now, it has been one tragedy after another. One kidnapping case replaced by the next. Little girls are taken from their schools. Families plunged into fear. We have reached a point where people whisper painful prayers like “may Nigeria never happen to me”, because we have watched the nation turn against its own.

Only last week, schoolgirls in Kebbi were abducted. And even though news has just broken that they have been freed, the joy of their return cannot erase the trauma of their ordeal or the deeper truth it exposes about our country. In that same week, more than three hundred students were taken from a Catholic school. These were girls who simply wanted to learn, to grow, to dream, to build a life. Their only “fault” was the desire to be educated. And then Nigeria happened to them.

There is no way to describe the agony of sending your child to school and then seeing on the news that she has been taken by ruthless, faceless men. You do not know whether she has eaten, whether she is being harmed, what fears she is battling, or what pain she is enduring. Is it a crime to be a girl child in this country? Why must she carry so much suffering on her small shoulders?

The rate of insecurity in Nigeria today is beyond alarming. And our leaders, what exactly are they doing? Must it be your daughter, your niece, your cousin, your wife before you feel any urgency? Must tragedy knock at your own door before you remember the weight of responsibility?

Those who lead us, those who hold authority, are meant to use every tool within their reach to protect citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Yet what do we see? Are they asleep? Is ordering schools to vacate the answer? When there is even a whisper of protest, government mobilises soldiers with unbelievable speed. But when children are carried away by bandits, the same urgency disappears as though the nation cannot see what is happening.

If you want to understand misplaced priorities, look no further than Nigerian leadership.

Sending students home is not a solution. It strips these girls of their fundamental right to education. And then what happens when they resume? Will the cycle of fear, evacuation and abduction continue? What truly is the way forward?

Our leaders must seek real, practical solutions to these recurring horrors. They must rise to their duties and be held accountable. Our girls are suffering. They are far too young to bear this kind of trauma. No girl, no child, no human being deserves this. No parent deserves the torment of knowing that their daughter is in the hands of men who may do only God knows what to her.

Our love, our prayers and our support remain with these girls and with their families. We thank God for the safe return of the abducted Kebbi schoolgirls, but we refuse to let that relief distract us from the painful truth that no child should ever have been taken in the first place. 

We continue to pray for every child still in captivity, and for the strength of the families waiting for their return. May our leaders finally be held accountable. May our girls be protected, truly and consistently. And may Nigeria never happen to any of us.

Rabi Ummi Umar is an intern at IMPR and can be reached via: rabiumar058@gmail.com.

By Hadiza Abdulkadir

In a landmark decision driven by national outrage over gender-based violence, Italy’s parliament has voted unanimously to establish femicide as a distinct crime punishable by life imprisonment.

The new legislation defines femicide specifically as the murder of a woman because of her gender. The unified move by lawmakers reflects a growing consensus on the urgency of addressing systemic violence against women across the country.

Beyond establishing severe penalties for murder, the legislative package also strengthens existing laws against stalking and “revenge porn,” aiming to broaden protections for victims of abuse.

The vote comes as Italy continues to grapple with high-profile instances of fatal violence against women. The national conversation reached a fever pitch following the brutal 2023 murder of university student Giulia Cecchettin by her ex-boyfriend, a case that sparked widespread protests and intensified demands for legal reform.

By Abdullahi Yusuf

The agitation for gender equality could be dated back to the beginning of the 18^th century when Mary Wollstonecraft wrote her book titled A vindication of the right of woman, in which she argues for women’s right to education. The issue rose to cosmopolitan through the 18^th and 19^th centuries when women from different parts of the world began to advocate for gender equality and fight against any act they considered as oppression against women by their opposite gender. They aggressively campaign against patriarchy – admonish it and call for its total abolition.

The central themes of most of their campaigns, as they usually proclaim, are centred around fighting against gender stereotypes and gender-based violence. And also seek equal opportunities as men, and women’s education, among others. They perceived women as being oppressed since the inception of humanity.

But unfortunately, the moral justification of this ideology puts men at a disadvantage. They consistently receive backlash as a predicament of these struggles. Those ardent advocates always consider men as oppressors, narcissists, egoists and self-centred, which causes all the misfortunes in women’s lives. This makes women that are adamant about this ideology highly androgynous.

Androphobia has become part of the ideology per se because most of those promoting it display one aspect of man-hating or the other. The radical ones among them tend to even distance themselves from any intersexual relationship due to their adamant stand on ideology. Do women who do not believe in this ideology have anything to lose? Why are many women against this ideology, and some even consider it evil?

According to major religious beliefs and scientific views about creation, almost all living things are created in pairs (i.e. male and female). The disparity is primarily because of reproduction. Therefore, females alone cannot reproduce without their male counterparts. Contemporarily, in this technologically advanced world, there are certain procedures that some women adopt to conceive without the physical involvement of men in the process. Still, regardless, man has to contribute in one way or the other along the way. That’s in the case of reproduction alone.

Human beings are created with inadequacies. Men tend to be physically stronger than women and can cope with the stressors of life more than women. Women, on the other hand, are meant to be more compassionate than men. They can better take care of the responsibilities of others without being stressed. That is why they tend to play a more significant role in the upbringing of children. Coming together of man and woman to form a family has never been a mistake, but rather to fill up the inadequacies of one another and form a society where morality is respected.

Unfortunately, marriage is the first institution destroyed by those promoting gynocentrism. That is why there is a high increase in the rate of single mothers in the developed world, negatively affecting the upbringing of children and victimising women by increasing the level of their responsibility to the children. Broken homes are mostly a predicament because of this ideology that usually renders many men homeless and distances them from their children.

Suicide among men has been on the rise, caused mainly by judgement issues by family courts in developed countries. The legal system has been tempered to favour women in matrimonial cases, which promotes gynocentrism. Men are being oppressed and victimised worldwide, but sadly, nobody talks about it.

Many rape cases where men were held responsible are just false accusations from women to get revenge for what might have occurred between them. Severally, men have been traumatised mentally over allegations of rape cases against them that have not happened. Men face a series of domestic violence. Many men were sexually molested during their childhood by elderly women, which perverted them in their old age. Men are being oppressed on several occasions by women, but nobody is standing for men, and nobody is advocating for men’s rights.

The equality that promotes gynocentrism advocate is subject to women’s superiority. You’ll be tagged as a misogynist when you talk to them about equality that will strike a balance between men and women.

Injustice can be found everywhere, across gender, race, tribe, etc. There’s no monopoly when it comes to justice or injustice. Anybody can oppress and can be oppressed. Therefore, try to be objective in your approach when calling for equality or justice. Nobody will deny you the right to advocate for your rights, but don’t be unjust in trying to find justice. Know your position in society and respect your social obligations and that of others.

Abdullahi Yusuf is a 400-level student of Health Education at Bayero University Kano. He can be reached via abdoolphd@gmail.com.

By Hassan Idris

In discussing sexual and gender-based violence, it is of utmost importance to distinguish between sex and gender. Sex is the biological predisposition of being a male or female, while gender refers to a social construction which is socially created. It’s sexual and gender-based violence because it’s violence against the sexual predisposition of somebody, accompanied by social and cultural norms against one’s gender. Sexual and gender-based violence can be violence against men by men, men by women, women by men or women by women. But I’ll be more concerned with violence against women by men. 

Culture and Gender-Based Violence

The role culture plays in sexual and gender-based violence is perilous because most sexual and gender-based violence cases revolve around social and cultural norms that are culturally made by society. Social norms are contextually and socially derived uncontested intentions of ethical behaviours. Sexual and gender-based violence persists as one of the extensively prevalent and ongoing issues confronting women and girls globally.

Disputes and other humanitarian emergencies spot women and girls at heightened risk of numerous forms of sexual and gender-based violence. The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) 2015 Guidelines for Integrating Sexual and Gender-based Violence Interventions in Humanitarian Action defines sexual and gender-based violence as “any fatal act that is perpetrated against a person’s will, and that is based on socially ascribed (i.e., gender) differences between females and males. 

What Makes up Gender-Based Violence?

Gender-based violence comprises conduct that imposes physical, sexual or mental harm or hardship, perils of such acts, intimidation and other deprivations of freedom. These destructive acts can transpire in public and in private. Toxic social norms that strengthen sexual and gender-based violence include women’s sexual virtue, conserving family respect over women’s safety, and men’s sovereignty to discipline women and children.

It’s paramount for us to know that women are at enormous risk of sexual and gender-based violence. We have seen circumstances where women are endangered by parental violence and violence during adolescence, and survivors always report adverse effects on physical, mental and reproductive health. Yet, often time hostile health and social effects imposed on women are never dealt with because often women do not divulge sexual and gender-based violence to providers or key health care or other services (e.g., safety, legal, traditional authorities) because of social norms that accuse the woman for the onslaught. 

Personal Experience with Gender-Based Violence

I can recall a friend’s elder brother who molested and beat his wife mercilessly because she served his mother food with her left hand. To him, it’s against his culture, and he had to beat his wife till she was hospitalised. Another man beat his wife because she cooked food for him while she was on her menstrual period, which he claimed went against his culture and traditional norms. There are many cases where women are badly hit because of their biological predispositions and cultural norms that give men more power.

Social and Psychological Impacts of Gender-Based Violence.

Sexual and gender-based violence have caused a lot of physiological, psychological and sociological injuries to numerous women. All indicate and enhance inequities between men and women and jeopardise victims’ health, self-respect, protection and freedom. Moreover, it incorporates various human rights infringements, including sexual exploitation of teenagers, rape, home cruelty, sexual battering and harassment, trafficking of women and girls and multiple other dangerous traditional practices.

Any one of these abuses can leave deep mental wounds; ravage the well-being of women and girls in a widespread manner, encompassing their reproductive and sexual health, and in some specimens, results in death. 

It is a Human Rights Violation

Violence against women is the most vastly yet subtlest renowned human rights intimidation in the world. It is an exhibition of historically unequal hegemony approaches between men and women, which have directed to dominance over and unfairness against women by men and to the impediment of the comprehensive advancement of women. Brutality against women is one of the crucial social tools by which women are impelled into a subordinate roles compared with men.

This violence may have contemplative effects, both direct and indirect, on a woman’s reproductive health, including undue pregnancies and insufficient acceptance of family planning information and contraceptives, unsafe abortion or damages unremitting throughout a legitimate abortion after an undesirable pregnancy, drawbacks from recurring rent, high-risk pregnancies and deficiency of follow-up care, sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, continual gynaecological problems as well as mental hardships.

Conclusion

In conclusion, to curtail and reduce sexual and gender-based violence, fundamental deterrence programs that promote change by dealing with the elementary causes and drivers of sexual and gender-based violence at a population level should be enacted. Such programs traditionally included endeavours to economically empower girls and women, enhanced legal penalties, enshrining women’s rights and gender equivalence within national legislation and policy, and other measures to promote gender equality and reduce sexual and gender-based violence.

Hassan Idris wrote from Kogi State, Nigeria, via drishassan035@gmail.com.