INTERVIEW: Why there are more SGBV cases in Nigeria — Gender advocate

Nigeria is grappling with a Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) crisis, with data showing an increase in reported cases of violence against women and girls over the years.

One gender advocate campaigning against SGBV is Grace Abbin, the manager of the Salama Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) in Kafanchan, Kaduna State. Her non-governmental organisation provides critical support services for SGBV survivors.

In this interview with PREMIUM TIMES, Ms Abbin provides insights into the root causes of SGBV, emphasising the urgent need for collective action. Nigeria has a network of 45 SARCs across 22 states and the FCT, including four in Kaduna. These centres, including that of Ms Abbin, offer free medical services, counselling, and support for SGBV survivors.

Grace Abbin, gender advocate and manager of the Salama Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) in Kafanchan, Kaduna State.

Excerpts,

PT: Your organisation has recorded more than 4,000 cases of sexual and gender-based violence in Kaduna State since its inception in 2019. What’s your observation about this surge and what do you attribute this increase to?

Abbin: From inception in February 2019 to July 2024, we recorded 3,977 cases. Now we have updated; in August we had 69 reported and treated cases and 4,046 as different forms of sexual and gender-based violence. While 378 were rape cases.

We have psychological, emotional, sexual, and physical assault. We have child trafficking, economic violence, financial violence, spiritual violence, and so many of them.

In my observation, the increase has to do with awareness. It’s not as if sexual and gender-based violence is not happening. It’s happening daily. People have been sleeping with it and the stigma will not allow them to speak about it. So many times, they don’t even know where to go about it. And because of the awareness creation and our impact on society, people are now reporting.

Now the 4,046 cases we have recorded are for Zone 3. Each of these SARC centres is located in the senatorial zones of the state government. So for ours, we have eight local governments, and so for these local governments, people come from different places to come and report, and that is why we have this huge number.

We now have an increase in the number of people speaking up.

PT: As part of the forms of gender-based violence, you mentioned spiritual violence, what does that mean?

Abbin: We have so many examples of spiritual violence. When we talk of spiritual violence, we had one man who took two ladies to the mountain because he wanted to pray for them and when they got to the mountain, he told one of them that he had forgotten the anointing oil and that she should go and bring it.

She went, and he now brought out the anointing oil from his pocket, and he told the other one that he wanted to anoint her and that she should remove her clothes, but she refused.

He poured the oil on her face and at the point of cleaning her face, he removed her clothes and forced her and made love to her — that was rape.

They kept managing it spiritually; they said they didn’t want anybody to know, only for the girl to be pregnant after a while. So, they now asked her and she narrated this story. She gave birth in the hospital where our centre is located. He did that to the two sisters, they gave birth a day apart. Through the referral pathway, he was prosecuted.

Spiritual violence occurs when someone uses an individual’s spiritual beliefs to manipulate, dominate, or control that person.

PT: What services does your centre provide to survivors of sexual assault and how do you ensure their safety and confidentiality?

Abbin: The sexual assault referral centre is a one-stop location where victims or survivors of rape or any form of gender-based violence can come in for intervention. The services rendered include medical treatment, psychosocial counselling and optional legal intervention.

Medical treatment in a sexual assault centre has been designed by the state government office so that services are free for our survivors.

For medical treatment, medical examination, lab tests, and forensic examination, to mention but a few. Psychosocial services are so broad and it is not only counselling; it has a lot of support it renders. I think I will talk some more about that.

We also have optional legal intervention where we say adults could choose to say they don’t want medical service, we don’t want any legal cases. But for children, especially in rape cases where we don’t negotiate, it is not optional. Children’s cases of rape must be presented and taken to court for justice for them, so it is not optional for children but it is for adults.

We work with the Ministry of Justice for advice and prosecution, and the Ministry of Education, where we do school counselling, safe spaces and other referral cases. We work with civil society organisations and development partners in reporting cases, advocacy, and capacity building. And we work with community and religious leaders and traditional leaders for safe spaces for reporting and referrals or advocacy. Normally, we cannot work alone, but the SARC centre never works alone.

PT: What’s the difference between a victim and a survivor of sexual and gender-based violence?

Abbin: A victim is a person who suffered violence without intervention and had the consequences of the violence. It could be death, pregnancy out of wedlock, infection, it could be so many things.

A survivor is a person who, out of the abuse, took it upon himself or herself or through others to speak up and say I need intervention. At the point you start intervening in any violence or any case, that person becomes a survivor. If the person does not speak, they become a victim of the abuse.

PT: How do you address the cultural and societal barriers that prevent victims from seeking help or reporting incidents?

Abbin: We have gone a long way in this area and are still working on it. Of course, you will agree with me that awareness and sensitisation should be continuous.

And that is what we always do, we do a lot of radio programmes, we go to gatherings and communities, and we do advocacy visits when we begin to have prevalence in so many areas with both organisations and even societies.

We try to engage people to tell them that (SGBV) incidents should not be kept quiet. The culture of silence must be broken and we talk to them, especially about harmful cultural practices and their negative effects. And we try to continue with awareness creation.

Though we still have the barriers, awareness is still ongoing.

Entrance of the Salama Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) in Kafanchan, Kaduna State

PT: You do a lot for survivors. What support systems are in place for your staff and volunteers given the emotionally demanding nature of this work?

Abbin: We have a self-care support system. People are trained according to their fields, there is a lot of capacity building.

We are being trained on how to take care of ourselves so that from time to time we take time off. So, we don’t all do it at once so that we don’t keep the place closed.

We are supposed to work 24 hours, but we are on the phone 24 hours. So, anytime you call us, we should be able to attend to a client. And even within the hospital, we have a synergy, if a case is presented and an issue is reported, the client can present it from the OPD and we will be able to talk. And tell them what to do next and we continue the next day.

So, our phones are working 24/7, but we are in service from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and everyone has a role to play. So, if we have issues, we excuse one another to take days off and take care of ourselves. So, we try to do that, we create time for relaxation.

PT: How do you measure the success of your centre’s programmes and services, and what outcomes do you hope to achieve?

Abbin: I count my success on the increased reporting of incidents in the centre. I see it as a success.

You know, for gender-based violence, because of the belief or stigma, people don’t want to open up. You can’t believe that people will come straight to tell you what is happening. Even children will want to report abuse themselves. So, I see that as success, too.

PT: What role do you think community engagement and education play in preventing sexual and gender-based violence, and how is your centre involved in these efforts?

Abbin: The role of community engagement is empowerment. It’s empowering people with knowledge of what is supposed to be done at a particular time, where to refer a particular case and whom to refer a case to.

PT: What inspired you to work in this field and what are the challenges?

Abbin: What inspired me to work in this field? This is interesting. One funny thing is that I was a banker from 1992 to 2023 when I left the banking sector and came back to the development world.

The truth is that I came from a family that fights for the rights of people. My father used to be in the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC).

It’s not only me in my family that fights for human rights. And I have a passion for this. I grew up in a family where our mother was a victim and she couldn’t speak up and was suffering. My father couldn’t fight it alone, but he was there to protect her.

They asked him to drive her because she was giving birth to girls and the girls were not useful, they called her names. But he supported her, he kept encouraging her and he trained us like men, meaning we worked like men. In fact, one of my younger ones drives a tractor.

I’m driven by passion. I keep imagining: women who don’t have anyone to speak for them; what are they going through? Gender-based violence has one funny character, it has no respect for profession, it has no respect for age, it has no respect for culture, religion, and what have you. It can be anywhere, anytime.

PT: What message would you like to convey to survivors of sexual assault and how they access your centre’s services?

Abbin: My message to my survivors is that they should be resilient. They will not end up as victims; that is why they are called survivors, and because they are called survivors, they should bounce back to life and live their lives as normal.

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They should not feel guilty, and they should not feel helpless. There’s life for them out there, and that’s why we have the intervention that once an intervention is given, one can bounce back to life and live a very normal life.

We are campaigning that every state should have a SARC centre where people can access these services.

If you google the internet ‘SARC centres in Nigeria,’ I think we have about 49 or more. Now without the SARC centre, you can access the services in primary health care where we have gender-based desk officers.