By Emiene Erameh
Gender-Based Violence (GBV), according to the UNHCR ,can include sexual, physical, mental and economic harm inflicted in public or in private. It also includes threats of violence, coercion and manipulation. This can take many forms such as intimate partner violence, sexual violence, child marriage, female genital mutilation and so-called “honour crimes”.
In Nigeria, emphasis is usually on intimate partner violence and sexual violence which can be seen. However, gender-based violence which causes economic harm is hardly talked about, even though it intersects closely with sexual and intimate partner violence as economic violence makes women vulnerable to the other more physically violent forms of abuse.
According to Alison Macdonald, the CEO Of Domestic Violence Victoria, an Australian based organisation, “it’s one tactic to manifest power and control over someone else.”
Dr. Olusegun Shoyombo, a consultant Psychiatrist with the National Hospital, Abuja, supports this position, saying this is a pattern which abusive people follow in one way or the other.
Azeezat Aremu, an accountant, was married for 16 years, but her husband refused to let her work in the first six years.
She said, “He had initially stopped me from working, saying I needed to stay in the house to raise the kids. He said he did not want house helps around his kids.”
Azeezat said the abuse did not stop at him asking her to stop work but also extended to physical and emotional abuse as he would often hit and abuse her verbally, saying she was useless.
She was, however, forced to look for work to augment the family’s finances when their economic situation took a turn for the worse following her husband’s loss of his job and the resultant lagging behind in the payment of their children’s school fees as he could no longer meet up with the financial needs of the family.
But by then, she had lost precious time and had to start at the bottom as she had no job experience, having never worked since she graduated from school. This meant that she had to start at entry level while her mates who started working after completion of their National Youth Service were at inter-mediate or management level.
However, her husband was unimpressed with her new role in the family.
“He said I was a disobedient wife and I would surely end up in hell fire. This was a systematic abuse that started and progressed to the point where I could hardly speak my mind for fear of it getting out of hand. He once said I was completely useless, I was useless to him and had no use what so ever in any way,” she narrated.
The physical violence extended to kids as well. He would beat them for the flimsiest reason with sticks and electrical wires and this made the children very afraid of him. The physical violence meted out on Azeezat climaxed with a fracture on her leg. She said when that happened, she knew it was time to leave.
Azeezat said her husband’s abuse affected her so badly she often felt her opinion could not possibly count for anything and she was always afraid of talking so it would not earn her a beating.
Dr. Shoyombo said this kind of abuse can lead to a sense of unfulfillment and depression which can even lead to a victim having suicidal thoughts, and in some severe cases, could lead to resentment towards the children and drug abuse.
Ella Onche, a Law graduate, said her husband’s refusal for her to do much especially when it involved handling money, like giving her money for something as basic as shopping for the family, initially seemed like love. She said this affected her badly because since she could not work and earn a living, so it meant she had no money of her own to attend to her own needs.
“Be weary of a man who doesn’t let you work, who doesn’t let you do anything, he doesn’t let you handle any money. He did everything from shopping for groceries to buying toiletries, everything.” Ella said.
She comtinued: “I later realised that it was just a ploy to keep me perpetually under his wings, and he did it so well I became totally dependent on him and when he had me where he wanted me then the psychological and verbal abuse started.
“’Can’t you do anything for yourself, he would ask, can’t you go to the market on your own’, he would always ask.”
Ella was a law graduate who got married while in Law school, but she has barely used her law degree. The only time she did any work related to Law was during her Court and Chambers attachment. “I had no money to meet my basic needs as my husband often told me I was no good at managing money, so he hardly gave me money to do anything since he took care of the shopping.
“When I decided to leave, I left with my kids and nothing else, and that is where an abuser wants you, totally dependent on him for everything,” she said.
Another victim, Vivian, got married to her husband when she was in her first year in the University of Jos. He was based in Spain.
She completed her first year, but by the second year, he started to complain that he did not marry a wife who will live apart from him, “and so I moved and joined him ” Vivian said.
The move meant sacrificing her education and learning to first speak Spanish if she wanted to continue with school and hopefully get a decent job over there. She had to resort to petty trading.
In July 2021, Amnesty International visited Nyanya community in Abuja and had a question-and-answer session with women in the community as part of activities to make human rights education accessible to all.
One of the questions sought to know if it was illegal for a husband to deprive his wife of the right to work and not provide for her and their children. According to information from Amnesty International, one of the women, Yaya Ahmed (real name withheld), talked about how her husband did not let her make a living, beat her up at will and barely provided for the family.
Recalling her ordeal, she said, “My husband did not care for our four children. It was normal for us to go hungry to bed with no food and our children dressed in rags. They were often sent out of school for lack of fees. I decided to start frying akara to enable me provide for my children. This angered him to the point of beating me up in the presence of my children. My relatives and his said I should have done as I was told and I had no business trying to play the role of a man.”
This form of abuse is usually silent and reported to relatives first and when that fails, the victims have to go the formal route by reporting to law enforcement agents.
But why the silence?
According to UNICEF, traditionally, in Nigeria, as in many other African countries, the beating of wives and children is widely sanctioned as a form of discipline. Women, where they earn more than their husbands or partners, are encouraged to be “humble” and guard against pride. Men are hardly ever given such admonitions.
Dr. Irowari James, a Psychologist, said it answers to an abusive man’s need to subjugate his victim and make her totally dependent on him.
“A man marries a woman who is earning higher and he is told that the woman is doing better and he comes back with an over bloated and useless ego, and wants to subjugate the woman, even if he may not be earning enough,” Dr James noted.
And so given this background, women are usually very slow to report when their husbands forbid them from working or want to assume control of their finances. Women who are brave enough to resist are advised to be submissive in order for peace to reign. Such disputes within the family are usually resolved by family members as women do not usually seek legal redress for economic abuse.
The Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team, in its 2021 annual report, listed 1,329 cases of Domestic Violence cases. While physical and sexual assault had high numbers, no mention was made of economic violence. It was classified under others.
In Australia it is called Financial Abuse and the list of likely perpetrators is expanded to include parents and siblings. But despite the reluctance to talk about this form of abuse, is there any hope of getting justice through legal means for survivors?
Position of the law
The Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act defines Economic Abuse as “(a)forced financial dependence; (b)denial of inheritance or succession rights; (c)the unreasonable deprivation of economic or financial resources to which a person is entitled or which any person requires out of necessity including (i)household necessities, (ii)mortgage bond repayments, or payment of rent in respect of a shared residence or (d)the unreasonable disposal or destruction of household effects or other property in which any person has an interest.”
While the VAPP Act criminalises economic abuse, this form of data is usually not listed amobg those presented for cases of GBV.
Lagos State is in the forefront of combating GBV. Aside from the domestication of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act, the state also has the Protection Against Domestic Violence Law, which was passed in 2007 and is only applicable in the state. It is the only state in the country which has enacted legislation specifically targeting domestic violence.
The VAPP Act has been domesticated in 18 states and the FCT, it is awaiting assent in 7 states and is yet to be passed into law in 10 states.. While these laws exist, it will take more than its existence to encourage women to speak out. The Lagos State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Moyosore Onigbanjo, while speaking at an event to highlight activities to commemorate the Domestic and Sexual Violence Awareness Month, September 2021, said the state had continued to witness a steady increase of formal reportage of domestic violence cases of over 150 cases daily, there are however no documentation of cases of economic abuse.
Communication officer, Techher, a hub of learning, supportand collaboration for women, Ofim Kelechi Ofim, who acknowledged how widespread the problem is, said a lot needs to be done to translate available data to actionable plans, such as sensitisation about what economic abuse is and a fund which abused women can access if and when they need to leave abusive unions.
What is the available data?
A public opinion poll conducted by NOIPolls in March 2021 revealed that 61 percent of Nigerians nationwide think that there is discrimination against women in the country.
The survey showed that in terms of gender discrimination in politics, family, work place and education, there is huge gender disparity in all areas.
Education was the only area where the poll showed women to have an edge with 60 percent of Nigerians believing that women in the country enjoy better inclusion.
Mr. Ofim said poverty is a vital factor in the dynamics of abusive relationships because it contributes in keeping women locked in such relationships since they do not have the required finances to leave.
This inclusion does not, however translate into better lives and jobs for women as 55 percent of Nigerians nationwide, according to the poll, believe that women are not currently given same opportunities as men in their respective families.
While many Nigerians agree that it is okay to seek help in the case of physical abuse, many are not so forgiving when it is economic abuse as such women are seen as “stubborn” and this may account for the low number of formal reports of Economic Abuse. This can be seen in the report by Amnesty International which was earlier cited.
According to the National Demographic Health Survey 2018, 40 percent of women who have experienced both physical and sexual violence are more likely to have sought help than women who have experienced only sexual violence and those who have experienced only physical violence because when women report cases of domestic violence, even at police stations it is sometimes treated as family matters which can be resolved without the involvement of law enforcement agents. This means that victims must reach their limits before they speak out.
From the forgoing, it would take a mix of all the forms and several layers of abuse before a woman feels she has taken enough and is able to report for fear of being stigmatised.
Way forward?
Mr. Ofim, who called for sustained enlightenment, noted that many of the beliefs which lead to GBV stem from outdated cultural practices and called for a reorientation of the male child to understand that all humans being male and female are born free and equal.
He said this cultural shift will make it possible for the men who are usually the perpetrators to change their orientation thereby making society better and reducing the incidence of GBV.
Elizabeth Olamide-Obayomi survived domestic violence and is now at the forefront of fighthing for justice for girls and women suffering similar plight in Ikorodu community in Lagos State. Stories like Elizabeth’s can help inspire other women going through similar ordeal leave.
This article was produced with the support of the African Women Journalism Project (AWJP), in partnership with the International Centre for Journalism (ICFJ) and through the support of the Ford Foundation.