In this report, Edoamaowo Udeme takes a look at the menace of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and believes that if Nigeria does not address the urgent need to implementing the Child Rights Act, the country would fail integrity test and may not meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
There is a crazy wave of gender-based violence (GBV) in Nigeria at the moment. Every other day, there is a report of a woman being raped, beaten and killed by a live-in lover, boyfriend or husband.
In GBV, there are primary and secondary victims. Primary victims are those that are directly affected, while secondary victims are those that are indirectly affected – the neighbours, family members and in so many cases, children. When violence occurs especially in a nuclear family, the perpetrators may assume that their kids are too young to understand, but according to John Locke, the philosopher, children are blank slates, and at that early stage of life, whatever they witness remains in their minds forever.
On April 8, 2022, when the news broke of the death of popular Nigerian gospel singer, Osinachi Nwachukwu, it sparked nationwide outrage. More so, when the cause of her death was said to have been linked to domestic violence.
Initially, her husband, Peter Nwachukwu, accused of allegedly being responsible for her death, was reportedly walking free and attributing her death to throat cancer. This was until facts emerged that she died from a blood clot as a result of being kicked in the chest. This led to his arrest.
The Minister for Women Affairs Dame Pauline Tallen visited the family and later told journalists that the children seemed to be “severely affected by the trauma, psychologically and physically.”
An analysis of the global persistence and even escalation of violence in all areas of life, including homes, communities, institutions, and armed conflicts, reveals that the vast majority of people are damaged by the decisions made and the actions carried out by those in power (largely men) are children (and women). For example, children constitute almost half of the 27.4 million refugees and the 30 million displaced people worldwide (https://www.un.org/rights/concerns.htm)
According to UNFPA the incidence of gender-based violence (GBV) is growing astronomically with the activities of the insurgency in North-East Nigeria. From forced and early marriages to physical, mental or sexual assault on women, nearly 3 in 10 Nigerian women have experienced physical violence by age 15 (NDHS 2013).
A lot of coverage and resources are centred on child victims of GBV. However, even being in an environment where they see or experience GBV also produces long-lasting psychological and physical trauma.
The Nigerian government came up with the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act in 2015, which widely covers the consequences of abuse of women and children with cash fines and jail terms.
The Child’s Rights Act (2003) guarantees the rights of all children in Nigeria, providing for the best interests of a child to be of paramount consideration in all actions. It also provides for a child to be given the protection and care necessary for his or her wellbeing.
Despite all these, there is hardly any justice for children in Nigeria, so they bear the trauma that may cause long-term effects on them for lack of “punishment” or legal liability for perpetrators of GBV. One now imagines what happens when children watch their fathers who kill or hurt their mothers and get away with it.
In other countries, such cases are between the government and the perpetrators but in Nigeria, it is between families. For instance, Peter Nwachukwu’s wife, Osinachi mentioned above, who according to eyewitnesses and family, died as a result of perpetual beatings may likely be back on the streets soon just like Emmanuel Ugele whose wife, Blessing Ugele bled to death after he beat her with planks of wood. Her crime was her refusal to have sex with her husband a few weeks after she had their third child through Caesarean Section. She left behind three children. Instead of applying the VAPP Act, it turned to family matters where pleadings eventually turned to threats and Blessing’s family had no choice but to hand off the case.
In Mararaba, Nasarawa state of Nigeria, a father of four who constantly beat his wife Gracie, (not real name), ended up killing her in one such anger bout, was arrested and taken into police custody. As usual, the families met and the only excuse they gave was that no one will care for the kids left behind if he went to jail. So they opted for one solution, forgive the father and allow him to come home and take care of his kids. The man is today walking free and living with the kids whose mother he killed.
As of April 2022, only 11 out of over 3,000 reported cases of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) in six states of Nigerian have been prosecuted. Data from the SGBV Situation Room revealed that out of over 3,000 reported cases, 107 were fatal, 742 cases were still open, while 188 cases were closed and only 11 had so far been prosecuted. The gender bias becomes glaring when GBV becomes fatal, women perpetrators become more persecuted than men, they and their families are taunted and shamed but if it were a man, the concentration is based on the man alone, hardly would the family be taunted and shamed.
Anytime domestic violence issues are discussed or mentioned in almost all facets of society, the victim/survivors’ children’s mental health is completely neglected. Some perpetrators assume the kids are too young to know, while some purposely groom their kids to take after them. Sadly, although, there is no data on children orphaned by domestic violence, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) noted that violence against children occurs in homes, families, schools, communities and their homes is what they grow up with, some end up replicating what they saw.
Nigeria needs places where children should feel safe, and its child protection programme should be able to provide preventive and response interventions for children who are victims of, or at risk from violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation through strengthened child protection systems.
ReportGBV, a National Gender-Based Violence dashboard of the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs to report on violence against women and girls in Nigeria which is supported by the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative project recorded 7008 cases of GBV in 2021/2022, in Nigeria. In it, there have been 248 fatal cases where the spouse, mostly the woman is killed. https://reportgbv.ng/#/
What becomes of the children of Osinachi who witnessed their mothers being abused severely by their fathers? What psychological effect does it have on them? Is there a possibility of those kids replicating their fathers in future or being emotionally withdrawn from the society?
Dr. Jackie Ikeotounye, a Nutrition Specialist and domestic violence survivor who left an abusive marriage with her 4 girls said “when it happens, people are more concerned about the adults. Like mine, the focus was on me, not knowing the effect it had on my kids. They forget that it also has a terrible effect on the children, in my own case, I was forced to leave when my kids were very young not because I wanted it that way, I didn’t really have a choice but because I travelled and returned to find out that I had been locked out and I had to start looking for where to keep my children, two of them were in secondary school while two were in primary, I quickly enrolled one of them in a boarding school while arranging for the other to sit for final exams somewhere else, I was left with the two whom the last one was barely 5 years then”
“What helped me was that I found God early, if I never did, I would have ended up with broken and dysfunctional children. That saying that children from such homes end up bad is because of the path the person they end up with takes. “For kids what they witness goes to sit in their subconscious there was this coldness and rejection from my ex-husband and it affected my last child badly because I noticed that she was always on the defensive, in fact, when she was 2, she slapped an usher in church because she asked her to sit somewhere she didn’t like, just imagine that?” The oldest was always reminding me mostly of the beatings that I had so forgotten, she never forgot what she had witnessed that her dad did to me. Some are emotionally distressed; they may have some symptoms which you may not relate to. There were times I couldn’t pay school fees and they were at home, agitated and sometimes aggressive towards friends and schoolmates, so I made them turn to God quite early. I trained them God’s way and it has paid off.”
Dr. Jackie added that “because of what they witnessed between me and their dad they believed that all men are violent, so they became defensive and avoided the opposite sex so, when they were growing up, I didn’t have to worry about them getting in trouble with the opposite sex but as adults, I had to start telling them that all men are not bad. They have started seeing some happy homes and some bad one, they now see things differently and I thank God for it” What helped me was that I found God early, if I never did, I would have ended up with broken and dysfunctional children”
Theresa Anthony, a mental health counsellor, gender specialist and therapist says “Domestic Violence affects children\more negatively than we think, they witness it and are sometimes directly affected, some parents throw verbal and physical abuse on the children imagining that it won’t have any effect on them. but it does, sadly since there is no support system for them, it now depends on the child to grow up and adjust the lifestyle alone. There is a general belief by people that children from abused homes will end up abusing others in their lifetime, and this may or may not turn out true. As for me, this may not be the case if the children get the required help and therapy on time, it would give them a different reorientation and perspective about life and relationship generally.”
The effects of children who experience or see GBV are termed as a form of maltreatment against children and this will push Nigeria back in meeting its SGD’s goals 3, 4, 5 and 16 by 2030. Nigeria could not attain the MDG targets by the end of 2015, even if smaller nations in Africa did. Now the same fate is happening with SDG targets. For instance, in the 2019 SDG index, Nigeria ranked 159th among 162 countries compared in terms of their achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Nigeria’s performance score of 46.4. Good health and well-being of children, which automatically affect their having quality education and because of gender inequality where their fathers abuse the mothers and they are forced to watch helplessly, and eventually, realize that there is no justice for them, their mental health is at risk.
Like Dr. Jackie puts it On therapeutic help for children’s healing, the government of the day has not set up any facility to help these kids because issues of mental and psychological health are not a priority to them, it is some Non-Profit-Organizations that have taken it upon themselves to render free services on it and there are no data on how many children are suffering from it”. Without fixing this problem, Nigeria will still lag behind in SDGs achievement and GBV perpetrators will still be emboldened to act because they succeeded in walking away free while the number of victims/ survivors would continue to increase.
If Nigeria does not address the urgent need of implementing the Child Rights Act, then once again, it will not meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) target and the rights of the children will be continuously violated as the perpetrators will continue to be emboldened to act and commit more havoc, after all, nobody is watching.
#This article was produced with the support of the Africa Women’s Journalism Project (AWJP) in partnership with the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and through the support of the Ford Foundation.
