Hello and welcome.
Our topic today is about domestic violence in IDPs and why it appears to be on the rise. The United Nations describes domestic violence as a pattern of behaviour in any relationship that is used to gain or maintain power and control over an intimate partner. Abuse includes physical, sexual, emotional, economic or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person.
This includes any behaviours that frighten, intimidate, terrorise, manipulate, hurt, humiliate, blame, injure, or wound someone. Domestic abuse happens among all races, ages, religions or genders, although it is mostly inflicted on women and girls.
Domestic violence is rife in internally displaced persons’ camps, where women hardly ever report it and they suffer in silence. Figures are hard to establish but it is estimated that at least one in three women in Nigeria experiences violence in the family, which sometimes leads her death.
The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the number of domestic violence cases because during lockdowns the abuser and the victim are forced to stay in the same place together and there is no escape.
Of the most affected states in the northeast, Bauchi is the only one to have implemented the 2015 Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act. Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Taraba and Gombe have yet to implement it. Why is that?
Our guests are:
- Dr Abiola Akinyode Afolabi, the founder and executive director of the Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre;
- Kaltume Jafar, the retired director of information and documentation at the Borno State House of Assembly; and
- Falmata Hamza Gambo, the director of women affairs in Borno State’s Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development.
