The Gender Channel is a threshing ground and a safe space to discuss contemporary and trending gender issues in Nigeria and around the world. Columnist Arit Oku, a gender and development specialist, uses a gender-sensitive lens focused on human rights and sustainability to offer a gender perspective on issues related to human well-being and sustainable development.
Can a mobile app help keep women safe?
Awareness of gender-based violence is rising in Nigeria in large part due to activism, social media activity, and the persistent voices of anti-FGM advocates. This application is a step in the right direction to break the silence that surrounds gender violence. But much will depend on the response to the complaints filed. Will the police, health authorities, legal entities, educational institutions, corporations, families, the media respond with compassion to the complaints filed?
I think that an app that helps in the reporting of cases of gender-based violence (GBV) such as rape, incest, trafficking, domestic violence, sexual harassment, among others, is quite ‘dumb’. However, I have my doubts, considering the rampant cases of gender violence that go unnoticed, unreported, unrecognized and unpunished.
On December 30, 2021, Premium Times published a story: “NGO Launches App to Report Cases of Violence Against Women.” It read in part: “The Alliances for Africa (AfA) mission, an NGO, has launched the ‘Kpoturum app’ to report and document cases of violence against women and girls (VAWG) in southeastern Nigeria.” This caught my attention because it is rare to find technology painstakingly developed to address issues affecting women and girls. Gender-based violence (GBV) is violence directed against a person because of their gender, often disproportionately affecting women. GBV and VAWG are interchangeable terms.
AfA program manager Blessing Duru said the ‘Kpoturum app’, which means ‘call me’ in the Igbo language (spoken in southeastern Nigeria), was designed to help survivors obtain justice through documentation. effectiveness, referral, and case management of VAWG.
The app shows great promise, but can it adequately address the spectrum of complications that gender-based violence cases present in Nigeria? I will give some examples. How, for example, does a distressed girl deployed to the southeast under the mandatory National Youth Service Corps pour herself out on her employer, who has constantly harassed her, without getting fired from her? How do you expose an underage girl to that creepy guy who has been stalking her within the confines of her home that should serve as her refuge? How does a girl denounce her father, who uses her house as a child bride, or the terrorists, who kidnap her at school and rape her?
How does the casual passerby recount the case of shopkeepers lining the sidewalks of the Yaba bus stop area in Lagos and other parts of the country who take on girls’ bodies, pulling on their arms, breasts or any other part they please, while using unacceptable and often derogatory language to address them? He particularly hated this when he was a teenager, but then he couldn’t put a name to this form of abuse. Can a whistleblower ‘call’ or trust the app? Can a young woman who was raped on a date dare to report the incident without being accused of complicity since the popular belief is that when a girl says ‘no’ she really means ‘yes’? After all, she must have exerted her ‘lower power’ to attract the male. Inferior power is a Nigerian coinage that implies that women use their bodies as currency to accumulate material goods.
The difficulty in reporting these cases and obtaining redress is exemplified by the fact that in higher learning institutions that should model best practice, lack of evidence has been the reason why cases of sexual harassment of girls by their teachers are routinely dropped from the list. window, to a recent case in which the accused university professor was sentenced to two years in prison. This historic conviction was possible because the survivor had an audio recording of the interaction between her and her teacher. She also enjoyed the support of NGOs and other advocates at every step of the ordeal, without which she would have given up.
Will legal and structural measures be put in place to protect survivors of gender-based violence from the usual blame games, shame and stigma? Are employers willing to implement gender and social inclusion programs as well as sexual harassment policies to raise awareness and curb these abusive practices?
The issue of respect for adults is highly valued, but in the context of sexual harassment, the younger woman is culturally restricted in her actions to protect herself from unwanted advances. A popular counterargument is that girls offer sex to their teachers in exchange for higher grades. Here we must consider the power dynamic between a teacher, who is usually older, and his student, sometimes young enough to be his daughter. The student has no power to punish the teacher if he decides to ignore her proposal. However, the case is different when the teacher propositions her student. He is older and has the authority to fail her if she refuses her demands.
Then there is the need for education and awareness. Sexuality remains largely a taboo subject in Nigeria. Therefore, speeches are often relegated to informal spaces where young people cannot access accurate and age-appropriate information. Many girls have neither the awareness nor the vocabulary to navigate the often nuanced nature of sexual harassment; much less denounce it. Communication from parents to children about sexuality is often poor, even regarding such natural matters as menstruation and menstrual hygiene. This increases girls’ vulnerability so that even when they are abused, they lack the courage to speak out. Therefore, the perpetrators often continue for a long time and suffer no consequences. Even when girls muster up the courage to speak out, they can be blamed for dressing provocatively and more often than not, the incident is hushed up to protect the family name, especially when the perpetrators are close relatives. Internal domestic helpers are particularly vulnerable.
The sociocultural context protects the aggressors from suffering the consequences of the abuse, especially given the low status of these women. Official structures, such as the Police, are not adequately trained to professionally handle reported cases, because officers are also the product of the same socialization processes. Application developers would need to take these contextual realities into perspective. Pretty good, the Nigerian Senate has passed the Anti-Sexual Harassment Bill in 2020, finally! Unfortunately, Nigeria is known for policies that are not implemented. A form of learned helplessness permeates politics, whereby no one expects any action.
Awareness of gender-based violence is rising in Nigeria in large part due to activism, social media activity, and the persistent voices of anti-FGM advocates. This application is a step in the right direction to break the silence that surrounds gender violence. But much will depend on the response to the complaints filed. Will the police, health authorities, legal entities, educational institutions, corporations, families, the media respond with compassion to the complaints filed? Will legal and structural measures be put in place to protect survivors of gender-based violence from the usual blame games, shame and stigma? Are employers willing to implement gender and social inclusion programs as well as sexual harassment policies to raise awareness and curb these abusive practices?
arit okugender and development specialist, writes from Lagos.