By Edoamaowo Udeme
At the outset, Godwins Fredrick’s family looks like the model of a happy, traditional family. He has been married for 22 years and has five children – three boys and two girls – with his wife. His wife has been a housewife since they got married and Mr Fredrick makes enough money, as a furniture maker, to feed his family. They live in their own house and he runs a small furniture shop nearby.
However, Mr Fredrick doesn’t talk much about the years they would move from one rental house to another after the expiry of their one-year leases because landlords would reject their rent renewals citing the wife’s attitude.
Neighbours would lobby for Mr Fredrick’s lease not to be renewed because they didn’t want to live next to his family. They complained about the violence in Mr Fredrick’s home and said it was not good for their children to be raised in such an environment.
Mr Fredrick and his family eventually moved to a house of their own, and while this solved the lease problem, the violence at home persisted. His wife beats him at the slightest provocation, and the children who are now adults, join in the assault, making demands and threatening to attack him if their demands are not met.
In all this, Mr Fredrick remains silent. He tells no one because he is ashamed and afraid of being ridiculed. He wonders what people would say if he told them about the violence. Not even the idea of going to the authorities or support services for survivors of domestic violence is reassuring. He worries that they would think he is weakling, laugh and tell him to man up and stop crying.
According to the 2021 VAPP Act 2015 Annual Report by the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), the agency charged with implementing the law against violence – the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act – of the 3,660 cases investigated in 2021, 368 involved women as aggressors. Among these cases, 327 were cases of spousal battery, with 12 cases involving women as perpetrators. Six of the investigated cases were convicted and three of the convicted perpetrators were women. In the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), 704 cases were investigated, of which 490 involved women as perpetrators. The report pointed out the lack of gender-disaggregated data from some of the reporting government agencies as a challenge.
Previously, data from Nigeria’s Demographic Health Survey of 2018 found that two per cent of women reported having ever initiated physical violence against their husbands, including hitting, slapping, kicking or doing other things to physically hurt their spouses without having experienced physical violence from their husbands.
The survey noted that women’s initiation of violence against their husbands is highly correlated with their own experience of spousal violence. For instance, 11 per cent of women who had ever experienced physical violence from their spouses (and 14 per cent who had experienced physical violence from their spouses in the past 12 months) initiated violence against their husbands, compared to less than one per cent of women who had never experienced physical violence from their spouses.
Another factor noted by the survey is that 13 per cent of women whose spouses were often drunk initiated violence against their husbands. Further, 12 per cent of women whose husbands had any of five marital control behaviours (husband is jealous or angry if they talk to other men, insists on knowing where they are at all times, does not permit them to meet female friends, accuses them of being unfaithful, or tries to limit contact with their families) were violent towards their husbands. On the other hand, one per cent of women who were violent towards their husbands did not experience any marital control behaviours from their spouses. In addition, nine per cent of women who reported that their father beat up their mother also initiated violence, compared to two per cent of women who were violent towards their husbands, but said their father did not beat their mother.
Anecdotes from marriage therapists like Mima Odiegu, who is also the founder of Purple Lifeline Connection, a non-governmental organisation, also highlight the hidden problem of violence against men.
Ms Odiegwu, whose organisation has reached 600 survivors of domestic violence, told The Scroll about a Bayelsan man whose girlfriend poured hot water on him, and another from Benin whose girlfriend cut off his manhood amid cheating allegations. She said male survivors of domestic violence have difficulties opening up about the abuse they face at home.
This silence is partly because of attitudes and perceptions about domestic violence in general, and also perceptions of domestic violence affecting men. For instance, a video of a social experiment by SoFlo and OCKTV, in which a woman beat a man on the roadside, showed onlookers laughing at the sight. However, when the couple swapped roles and the man became the aggressor, he was nearly beaten up by onlookers.
When domestic violence affecting men is not taken seriously, the survivors shy away from reporting it. For instance, respondents to an informal survey on domestic violence against men posted by the Network Against Domestic Violence Foundation on Facebook said that male victims of domestic violence were unlikely to open up because they feared people would laugh at them or that nobody would believe them.
In response to a question asking why men don’t speak out when they face domestic violence, Wisdom Onoghwaren wrote that victims find it hard to talk about the violence because of the fear of being seen as not being in control or in charge of their homes. Ubong Obot wrote that people judge male survivors of domestic violence as weak and incapable, while Udo Friday Adam wrote that men are not expected to discuss every detail of their lives. Lokossou Sylvain wrote that men remain silent because society expects them to be strong and because it’s hard to explain or prove emotional violence to third parties. All these, said Olubunmi Folashade, another respondent, stem from the patriarchal values and beliefs about masculinity that keep men from speaking out.
Kamara Adetola-Kazeem, a PhD student at Lagos State University, whose thesis is on domestic violence, told The Scroll that preliminary findings from her ongoing and yet-to-be-published research, show that men do not report because of low public awareness of violence against men, as well as the concern that no one will believe them.
The South African College of Applied Psychology (SACAP) echoed the stated reasons, observing that men don’t report domestic violence because of stigma, social shame, guilt, fear of ostracisation, and social prejudice which questions the masculinity of victims of gender-based violence. In addition, women are often not seen as perpetrators of intimate partner violence, and men fear a loss of access to their children if they report the violence. Men also reframe sexual abuse as torture and in cases where the intimate partner violence is in same-sex relationships, men don’t report it because same-sex acts are illegal in many African countries and the survivors fear homophobic backlash.
The SACAP report noted that in the midst of silence, men suffer the long-term impact of gender-based violence on their health and social behaviour. The health impact includes physical damage such as broken bones, lacerations and cuts; sexually transmitted infections such as HIV/AIDS; mental illness such as depression, and suicide. On the social front, men who suffer domestic violence may in turn exhibit violent behaviour, perpetuate abuse and have substance abuse challenges.
To break this culture of silent suffering, Oladipupo Alli, who filed a case in court citing domestic violence against his estranged wife, told The Scroll that he started speaking about his experience and started the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Law Awareness Campaign in Kwara State in 2022 to create awareness about the VAPP Act and to get more men to speak out and seek help. The VAPP Act was passed to eliminate all forms of violence, punish offenders and provide protection and effective remedies for victims. It prescribes penalties in form of jail terms and fines for offences such as rape, inflicting physical injury, verbal and psychological abuse, economic abuse, abandonment, stalking, intimidation, incest, spousal battery and harmful traditional practices, among other offences. For spousal battery, the law prescribes up to three years in jail and a fine of up to N200,000 or both.
In response to a divorce and custody case filed by his estranged wife, Mr Alli filed a case citing criminal assault, domestic violence, reckless driving, mischief, contempt of court and public disturbance from his wife. He submitted pictorial and video evidence (bloodied clothes, damaged windscreen of his car and stones thrown inside his car) to support his claims.
The case is still in court, but Mr Alli told The Scroll that he started his campaign to create awareness of the law and to protect men because he doesn’t want other men to suffer silently. However, while he talks openly about his experience, he has found that other men do not readily speak about being survivors of domestic violence, even though the law promises redress for survivors of domestic violence.
The National Human Rights Commission in Nigeria observes that more women than men file domestic violence complaints and that even with the VAPP Act in place, societal norms keep men like Godwin and others suffering in silence.
*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 with support from the Ford Foundation*.
