Unveiling the Layers: Why Kano State Has the Highest Number of Gender Based Violence in Nigeria
By Mariya Shuaibu Suleiman
Despite the establishment of Violence against Persons Prohibition Act (VAPP) on May 25, 2015 in Nigeria to prevent and criminalize various forms of violence against persons including rape, sexual abuse, harmful traditional practices such as female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), forced marriage, and domestic violence, Gender Based Violence continues to increase in the North-western states, particularly in Kano State.
Kano, with its diverse population, is grappling with an issue that extends far beyond statistics. The prevalence of GBV has reached unsettling heights, prompting a critical examination of the underlying causes.
Mariya Shuaibu Suleiman write on reasons why Kano State has the highest rate of GBV cases in Nigeria.
According to the International Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA), Kano Chapter, report, Kano State Waraka Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC), has documented over 4000 cases of sexual violence in the last five years.
In between November 2022 to February 2023, The Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), reported 171 GBV cases constituted of rape cases and other sexual abuses in Kano through their GBV Monitoring and Recording App.
Notably, the Head of Unit in SARC, Hajiya Halima B. Faruk revealed that Kano currently has the highest rate of Gender Based Violence GBV in Nigeria.
Prior to Hajiya Halima Announcement, the Director of Planning Research and Statistics of the Ministry of Women, Children and Disabled, Yakubu Muhammad said they do receive cases of GBV incidence from SARC and currently, they have 300 cases of GBV, adding that it is because of the increasing incidence the Government is making more effort to establish additional sexual referral Centres across the three Emirate Councils and the Rano LGA is awaiting equipping.
Reasons Why Kano Has Highest Rate of GBV Cases
The Protocol Officer of the Centre, Aminu Usman said the issue of GBV cases is rampant in across the State.
Aminu explained that the issue now compare to last year, is on the increased and it is becoming worst as the Centre can receives upto 100 cases in a Month.
“The issue of rape is becoming out of hand and is getting worst. In a month we can receive 95-100 cases of rape and currently, from the beginning of this month so far we received over 50 cases, just last week, 17 cases of rape were brought to us on a single day from one community that I can disclosed for confidentiality.”
Aminu attributed the increasing incidence to lack of working laws to address that issue in the State, saying that the issue is increasing because they perpetrators do not received proper punishment.
He said 60% out of 100% of the offenders escapes punishment after been reported to the authority and that is the reason why they always go back to the Community and continue doing the same thing.
Aminu give reasons to why Kano Continue to have the highest number of GBV cases in Nigeria.
He said the reasons are not far-fetched, “the absence of VAPP Act law, culture & stigmatization, lack of education and awareness, diverse population and economic reasons all intersect and play a significance role in the increasing incidence of GBV cases, resulting to highest rate of GBV cases in Kano.”
“Absence of VAPP Act is one of the major factors, we have seen situations where most of the offenders escaped because the existing laws does not properly handle the GBV cases and ensure their punishment. VAPP Act contains a lot of provisions to tackle all forms of GBV and punishment of the perpetrators but Kano State has not yet domesticated the law in the State.”
“In regards to education and Awareness Gaps A lot of work has been done by many organizations and even the Government to raise awareness on the dangers of the menace in Kano even though there are places yet to be reach in the awareness campaign but that is not the case in most places in Kano, a lack of comprehensive sex education by the parents, especially, the mothers to their wards is the big issue and this has caused lot of harm than good in the society.
“Most mothers in the North fails to educate their female daughters about sex education because they find it awkward and having the belief that once they do, the child will have an idea of what sex is and start to experimenting it.
“Culture & Stigmatization also come to play a role in the situation. Most of the times, the victim of rape faces stigma in her community and nobody will like to marry her as the culture expects woman to be a virgin until her wedding day and if the husband finds out she is not, he will begin to despise and may even tell his family and they will begin to maltreat her and be looking at her as someone that sleeps around, this is why many parents of the victims cover up and keep quiet about the matter, not wanting to even cooperate with human right commission to push for their justice because they are scared of exposing their daughter to protect them from stigmatization in the community and cultural nuances.”
He added that aside from sexual assault, domestic violence which is among the GBV issue is another factor that contributes to the increasing incidence.
“Many women experience domestic violence in their homes but they chose to keep quiet because culture and society expects a women to maintain her marriage at all cost and this has killed a lot of women and others that tries to speak up, use to get discourage from their families, friends and communities.”
Aminu also pointed out large and diverse population and economic situations adding to the issue.
“You see Kano is a very big State with highest population so the issue would be a little much here compare to States like Jigawa, Bauchi, Kaduna, Katsina and the rest and most of the times, when we ask the victims how it happened, while recounting the incidence, some of the victims will tell us that the perpetrator start with giving the girl small money and from there took her somewhere and raped her……,so all these things happened even though there is no justification to why a girl should be raped.”
He added that “ if parents can stand up there feet, take up their responsibilities and be cautioning their wards about the dangers of collecting a money or gift from strangers and even closed ones that have bad intentions, things will get better.”
But upon all the reasons Aminu gives, he maintained that absence of VAPP law is the main reason behind the problem and therefore urge the State Government to domesticate and implement the VAPP act to curtail the menace.
No VAPP law, increasing Trend Continues
According to the Kano State Coordinator of Human Right Commission, Abdullahi Shehu, the Commission is working tirelessly to see the incidence reduces but the situation remains increasing even more than before because VAPP Act has not been domesticated yet.
“We put a lot of effort in such cases but it keeps increasing, because the law that will help mitigate the issue is yet to be domesticated. You know when there is legal framework, it will definitely assist in promotion of Justice.
“VAPP act contain a lot of positive provisions to protect the victims and having it as a legal frame work in the State will help in the fight against SGBV and will benefit the general public of the state and that is why we at Human Right Commission, Ministry of Justice and other relevant stakeholders are putting more efforts to see that the VAPP Act is been domesticated in Kano.
Shehu pointed that refusing or taking time to domesticate the VAPP law, there will be a big problem in the administration of Justice and prosecution of the offenders particularly in the terms of rape cases and the incidence will continue to increase.
He therefore called on the State Government to domesticate and implement the VAPP Act in Kano to ensure justice for the victims by ensuring the punishment of the perpetrators and so that the Commission and other Organizations fighting for SGBV will see the effort they are putting in place.
He believes that domestication and Implementation of the VAPP Act is the only way forward to curtail the menace of rape and sexual assault.
Legal Framework-Absence of VAPP posed a big Challenge
Examining the existing legal frameworks and law enforcement mechanisms is crucial. The appropriate laws to help in mitigating in the State remains lacking and the existing laws.
Hajara Safiyo Hamza FFIS, a Senior Magistrate at the Kano State Judiciary and also the Vice Chairperson of FIDA revealed that they have laws like the Penal code act, but all the existing laws do not directly render significant help to rape victims because is a gap in the legal framework.
She added that is only VAPP Act that contains all the necessary provisions for the punishment of the offenders saying it is the only way to eliminate or rather mitigate incidence of rape cases and other sexual assault.
Safiyo also said to safeguard the safety of young girls in society, there should be legal representation and ensuring that perpetrators of the crime are brought to book.
Community Perspectives
A Community leader in Kano, Malam. Bala Shehu pointed out that it is not like community leaders are not doing anything to help in mitigating the GBV issue, but because there are no working laws.
“We don’t use to keep quiet about it and we don’t encourage the victims and their parents to close the case. Anytime this case is brought to us, we use to report it to the Police unless if we didn’t know about it but the scaring part is, they offenders used to get away with it most of the time and will come back to the community doing the same thing.”
According to him, new laws must be enforced so that they offenders will start serving proper punishment.
“I believe if the new law ensure punishment of the perpetrators, must of them will stop doing it.”
Voices of Some Victims and their Plea to the Government
In the interviews conducted with some of the Victims, they revealed their challenges and how they want the Kano State Government come in.
A 4 year old Khadija, revealed that was raped by a young man that owns a provision shop in their Street.
“It was one man that sells sweets and biscuits in my Street that called me and give me sweet and took me to one place, remove my pant and put something in my vagina, it was very painful and upto now my vagina is itching and paining me.”
Khadija’s Mother explained how she knows that her daughter was been raped after noticing a non-stop white discharge coming out from the little girl’s vagina.
“Initially, I noticed how she was scratching her vagina non-stop and any time I ask her, she will start crying so I now decided to check the place and find out why she was scratching the place like that and to my surprised, I saw some white water coming out from her vagina and the vagina was red and wide opened so I became curious and started asking her and that was when she told me what happened so I called my sister and we took her to a hospital but said they will not admit us and told us to go to the Sexual Referral Centre so we went there and they call a Police before conducting a test on the girl and the result said it is a severe infection.”
The mother further said her little daughter of just 4 years is battling with severe infection and was put under medication and pray for the law to find justice for the girl.
She also urge the Government to ensure punishment of the perpetrators so as to reduce the menace.
Asiya is 9 years old. She revealed that it was a young man that comes to their House that raped her.
“I know him and he used to come and collects food from my mummy. He always call me to give me sweets and money and took me to one uncompleted building and remove my clothes and insert something in my vagina.”
Asiya’s Mother said they found the girl helpless after the incidence and took her to a hospital with a Police where she was admitted and conducted at test and the result shows she contacted sexual transmitted disease.
She said they took the case to Human Right and went to Court but the Court later said it was not rape and she knows that her daughter was raped.
She added that since then, she lost hope and leaves everything to God while urging the State Government to be following up on what is going on and to be ensuring the law do justice in its prosecutions.
On the side of Adamu, who is 7 years old, he was sexually assaulted by a 17 young man in there neighborhood.
The victim’s mother said Abubakar develop a severe stomach acne after the incidence which made them to take the case to court, the court passed on its judgment but said unfortunately the offender was later released without paying for her son’s medication.
“After the incidence, Abubakar start experiencing severe stomach acne so they took him to a hospital and from there Human Right and to Court. After the prosecution, the perpetrator was found guilty and sentenced 6 months of Imprisonment with a fine of 20 and 27 for the victim’s medication but the young man was later released without paying for Abubakar’s medication.”
She however described the incident as quite unfortunate and call on the State Government to enforce working laws that can be ensuring justice for the victims.
A 17 year old Saratu was killed after been raped and impregnated.
During the investigation, Mariya found out that the deceased was drugged before she was raped in her uncle House but she did not found out that she was pregnant until after 5 five Month.
According to her sister, Hadiza, they tried all they could to know who impregnated her sister in the uncle’s house, and the reason why, but all efforts prove abortive and they took the case to the Human Right Commission and to Court because they have a suspect and they Court order for DNA Test and adjourned the case until after she put to bed but since then, Saratu started receiving messages from unknown number, threatening her to drop the case but she continued with the case.
The sister added that after Saratu put to birth, they conducted the DNA along with the suspect but before the result could come out, Saratu got missing and her corpse was found inside a pound in their Street.
The baby is now with Saratu’s sister and the family are in a terrible situation She pleaded to the Government to come to their aid and fight for Saratu’s Justice saying their lives is no longer safe because the suspect is still free.
A GBV Advocate and also a Chair of Board at the Baobab for Women’s Human Rights, Dr. Zubaida Nagee highlighted that gender based violence is a terrible experience as affects the victim’s physically, psychologically and emotionally.
She said BAOBAB does a lot of advocacy campaigns, sensitization programs and also offers psycho-social supports to victims and encourages parents and victims to always voice out whenever they are been abused though she pointed that, that is not the case most of the times, ensuring their justice used to be the challenge.
She therefore stressed that there is need to have the VAPP Act law in Kano and ensure the implementation of such law after the domestication so as to find justice for women and children that were been assaulted and ensure the punishment of the perpetrators. This she added is the only way forward to curtail the menace.
Dr. Zubaida urge the Kano State Government to make the VAPP Act a reality in the State as the lack of the law will contributes significantly, in the increasing incidence of GBV cases in the State.
As Kano grapples with the highest rates of GBV in the state, a comprehensive understanding of the issue is essential for meaningful change. Government need to consider domesticating and implementing the VAPP Act in the State so as to mitigate the increasing incidence and create a safe environment for women and children.
This story is conducted by Mariya Shuaibu Suleiman, a Multimedia Journalist interested in amplifying women and children voices, seeking for Justice and Accountability
