Why Nigeria is failing survivors of sgbv

Survivors of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in Nigeria continue to face enormous barriers to justice, medical care and rehabilitation due to systemic failures and inadequate government support, says gender rights advocate Dorothy Njemanze and founder of the Dorothy Njemanze Foundation (DNF). In this exclusive interview with The ICIR, Njemanze, who is also a sexual violence survivor, shares how her personal experiences fueled her passion to protect vulnerable women and children in society.

You’ve devoted much of your life to supporting women and children who have suffered abuse and violence. What inspired this journey, and what keeps you motivated?

I am a survivor of sexual and gender-based violence. I survived child sexual abuse, I survived sexual abuse and intimate partner violence as an adult. And so, for the rest of my life, I will be working on systems that will support vulnerable persons, especially survivors of abuse, to have better access to services and resources and also to prevent these things from happening.

Because if, in the first place, it was prevented, then we wouldn’t need to take action to save lives. So, to do that, the Dorothy Ndemanzi Foundation was born. There was a time, because of the random abduction and gross violation of women and girls in Abuja by the Abuja Environmental Protection Board, we needed to work with an organisation that can sue and be sued, and that birthed the Dorothy Ndemanzi Foundation, which people popularly call DNF.

Now, the majority of the people on the board, the management, and the staff of the organisation are survivors of violence. And with data, we see that the majority of the people who suffer violence are women and children. And the reason is because of the patriarchal culture, ideologies and practices. People justify these ideologies that shrink other human beings or make them relinquish their emotional status or their human rights very often.

One thing we pride ourselves on is that we are grounded in human rights. They say one in three females has experienced sexual violence. One in six children has experienced sexual violence. One in 18 men experienced sexual violence. And so, the question is across the board; it touches everybody, but there should be systems in place that recognise that everybody could be the victim. It could be a male, a female or a child.

Irrespective of who it is, there should be access to whatever resources are needed at a point in time, whether it is for preventive or for responsive.

What steps did you take to heal and turn your experiences into a source of strength and advocacy?

It’s more like experiences because it’s not one experience. Trying to know has expanded my views about a lot of things. It was, first of all, recognising that I am a human being with human rights. It was first of all me recognising that I am an emotional being with human rights and demanding accountability across the board, from everybody I encountered that way. Are there things I still live with? Yes, there’s a lot of depression. There’s a lot of anxiety that comes. I mean, exposure to trauma puts you on a disability spectrum, because in dealing with anxiety, you can’t sleep.

There are medical options for managing it, and that puts you on the disability spectrum. But because of the amount of stigma that exists, a lot of people choose to live in denial.

I prepare for the worst every day, but I try to live the best quality of life every day. I am deliberate about reflections. I am deliberate about what hurts me. I am deliberate about the extent to which things hurt me because many times, living in denial is like covering a sore. I have exposed myself to being open, but at the same time, I have learned to use my voice. I have learned to be assertive. I’ve learned to tell my story myself, and that is what made me take Nigeria to the ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) court.

There was a landmark court judgment in which Nigeria was the first country to be pronounced guilty of gender-based violence in the Dorothy Njemanze and three others versus the Federal Republic of Nigeria case.

Can you take us through the journey of establishing the Dorothy Njemanze Foundation and share some of the notable cases you have handled?

It’s a wide range of stories. We handle an average of three cases daily. In a month, there are usually a minimum of 40 active cases. And this is just a non-governmental organisation. We are not law enforcement. We render free confidential services around the clock to survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. We run a survival support centre, a working facility that people can come to and report cases in Abuja.

What we found out with providing medical care is that the medical results are corroborative evidence of whatever these people are going through. And so it helps the legal dynamics of their cases. And I’m proud to be a part of the system that has brought that degree of clarity for a lot of people.

Now, with the police, you still pay to buy a file in many places. You pay to be attended to and to have officers inspect the crime scene or invite the alleged perpetrator. The cost of all of this is on the survivor or the victim, right? Let’s use a two-year-old, for instance. A two-year-old who is raped is expected to foot the full medical and legal bills? All bills, you know, if the two-year-old wants justice. How much does a two-year-old earn? In light of that, imagine now how that affects adults who are expected to be able to look for money. So there’s an unfair burden that is placed on people who want to access justice.

There is now a lot of soft landing for perpetrators. There are many forced settlements, amongst other things. Many people who deserve justice cannot afford the increasingly high cost of accessing justice. Some children have been abused. I mean, one of the things I still cringe about is a three-year-old whom I had encountered saying, ‘Please, it’s itching me.’ I said, “What is itching you? She said, ‘My bum bum is itching me.’ And then, okay, we took her to the hospital. She had tears around her vagina and her anus. And it was her father who was the perpetrator. The child said, ‘Daddy gives me his peepee to eat,’ and this, amongst other things. Now, till today, that matter has not been prosecuted.

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We report these matters to law enforcement, but not much is done. There was a matter in which we effected a citizen’s arrest. We dropped the perpetrator off at the NAPTIP office. In December this year, the child who was produced from the rape that led us to effect a citizen’s arrest is going to be six years old. Nothing has been done about that. The last we know of that case was the perpetrator was granted bail. Fine and good. It’s your duty to grant bail. But after granting bail, what happens next? Where does justice go?

In the case of a 12-year-old who was put to bed. We heard that a 10-year-old was about to be married off in Abuja, and so I gave my colleagues an ultimatum to locate the person within 48 hours. Indeed, we traced the child. At the time, the child said she was 11 years old, and she said they were living like husband and wife with the man.

We had heard that the parents had demanded a bride price from the person who got her pregnant to give legitimacy to the pregnancy the child was carrying. He was in his 30s, and the child turned 12 years old in December of 2025. I mean, the Rapid Response Squad of NAPTIP was fantastic and swung into action. We offered antenatal services, and that was the first time the child had been seen for anything related to antenatal care. She was over four months gone at the time, and so the perpetrator came with her to the hospital. We called the Rapid Response Squad, and they picked him up. But they released him on bail. This was done in November 2025. My question is, between November 2025 and April 2026, especially in the case of a minor who has been raped, is something not supposed to have been done?

We sent in several petitions, but none of them has been responded to. And then the perpetrator called my personal number last year, saying that NAPTIP says that his wife is with me, and that they had finished with him, and he’s written his undertaking so he can go and work. For somebody who has passed through NAPTIP to keep calling a child his wife, I worry about the quality of the kind of orientation or reorientation happening in the process of investigation, because there’s a gap.

In the first instance, how did he get my personal phone number? I’m not talking about an office number. And it seemed like I wasn’t giving him the response he wanted. Then he went on social media to the DNF platforms, and he sent messages saying: “You people are with my wife. Can I have my wife? And the office responded, “We don’t know who you’re talking about. Then he had the audacity. He sent a picture of the child as his wife.

Running a survivor support organisation in Nigeria comes with enormous demands. What would you say is the biggest challenge your foundation faces, and what kind of support do you need from the government and the public to sustain the work?

Let me give you an insight. In feeding, for instance, every day, we feed no fewer than 35 people breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Let us peg it at three meals a day at N4,500 a day, per person. Now, times 35, you’re talking about N157,500 a day. When you times this by 30, you get N4,725,000 monthly. Then in a year is N56,700,000. This is feeding alone. This is not a power bill. This is not school fees. This is not medical bills. This is not legal bills. This is not law enforcement engagement. This is not transportation at all. At the end of last year, we celebrated largely when a bus was donated to the organisation. And then by the end of March, the people who provided the bus retrieved their donation. So, it left us stranded.

We mobilise resources through partnerships. Schools have given us partnerships, a lot of people have said, oh, bring survivors, this is the business I do. And now we’re calling on people, are you a techie person, are you a developer? Give us resources and let us empower survivors. A lot of our people are very industrious.

We need to get free medical care, and we need to get health insurance for our survivors. Within the first year, at least, hospitals can help to manage these people. Because I watch people die so often, and it’s not good for us. The vicarious trauma that those of us on the front lines face is very unfair. So, if you have a business, please give us gadgets, you have a farm, give us food. We need resources to be able to support survivors.

Your organisation is based in Abuja, but cases of gender-based violence cut across Nigeria. How can survivors in other states access your services?

All our social media platforms are active. info at dnf.org.ng or communications at dnf.org.ng are emails that are very reliable. And then, Dorothy Njemaze Foundation on Facebook, Dorothy Njemaze Foundation on Instagram, DN Foundation on X, you know, Dorothy Njemaze Foundation on LinkedIn. Our social media platforms are always buzzing with a lot of information. And the information is relevant to all parts of Nigeria. And so please, I encourage everybody to follow, subscribe. The DNF helpline is 07013333307.

Nanji is an investigative journalist with the ICIR. She has years of experience in reporting and broadcasting human angle stories, gender inequalities, minority stories, and human rights issues. She has documented sexual war crimes in armed conflict, sex for grades in Nigerian Universities, harmful traditional practices and human trafficking.