Reporting on this subject does real good. It is how the law gets scrutinised, how services get held to account, and how a woman reading a newspaper works out that what is happening in her house has a name…
People assume Nigerian law is one thing. For domestic abuse it is not, and the difference is not academic — it decides what you can ask a court for, which court you go to, and how quickly anything happens…
There is an assumption, held by almost everybody including many of the women it applies to, that a woman with her own money is safe. She can leave whenever she wants. Nobody can control someone who pays the rent…
The Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act, usually shortened to the VAPP Act, was passed in 2015. It is the single most important piece of Nigerian law for anyone experiencing domestic abuse, and it is widely misunderstood in both directions…
Leaving without documents is normal. People leave at night, or during a window that lasted four minutes, and a birth certificate is not what you are thinking about. The consequence arrives about three weeks later, when everything you need…
When we ask a woman what is keeping her where she is, the answer is very often her mother. Not a husband's threats, not money, not the police. Her own parents, telling her that every marriage has difficulty, that…
A woman reports an assault. Within days there is a complaint against her: she stole from the house, she abducted the children, she is unfaithful, she is mentally unwell, she is the violent one. This happens often enough that…
An account only you can see is the single most useful practical thing a woman in an abusive marriage can have. It is what makes transport possible, what makes a deposit possible, and what turns leaving from a leap…
Most advice about rebuilding assumes a job. For a great many Nigerian women a trade is the more realistic route, and sometimes the better one: it starts sooner, it fits around children, it does not require a reference for…
A great many women describe the same surprise. They coped for years, left, reached somewhere safe, and then fell apart. That is not a relapse and it is not weakness. While you are in danger the body holds itself…
