Violence Against Women

The United Nations defines violence against women as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in physical, sexual or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life. Violence against women also known as gender-based violence is a major public health challenge. According to global estimates published by World Health Organisation (WHO) 55% of women worldwide have experienced either physical or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime. Women of all ages are not spared from violence in one area or the other.
Violence against women permeates every facet of the society. Some violence against women are commonly experienced in different societies, others are peculiar to specific cultures. Some commonly observed violence against women include domestic intimate partner, violent sexual harassment like the trending, “sex for grades” in our higher institutions, defilement, female genital mutilation, widowhood practices, male preference, sex trafficking of women and girls, etcetera. Violence against women is a manifestation Of historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of the full advancement of women.
Under the Penal Code (see section 55 (1) (d) of Penal Code), a man is allowed to beat his wife. The Penal Code provides that “Nothing is an offence, which does not amount to the infliction of grievous harm upon any person and which is done by a husband for the purpose of correcting his wife. Such husband and wife, being subject to any natural law or custom in which such correction is recognized as lawful. This provision of the Penal Code condones domestic violence against women in matrimonial relationships. Violence against women like son preference, female genital mutilation, wife beating, widowhood practices, etcetera are all societal stereotypes embedded in the psyche of the people and passed from generation to generation. According to the UN, “there is no region of the world, no country and no culture in which women’s freedom from violence has been secured.
Although it cannot be said violence against women has been secured but it can be said that the awareness created in this regard has reduced the effect of violence against women. There is a continuous fight against genital mutilation, the son preference thing is now reduced because the Supreme Court in Nigeria in a landmark judgement marked SC 22/2014 filed by Mrs Lois Chituru Ukeje (the wife of the late Lazarus Ogbonna Ukeji) and their son, Enyinnaya Lazarus Ukeje against Mrs Gladys Ada Ukeje, the deceased daughter, altered the domination, subjugation, discrimination and humiliation suffered by women in Igboland from time immemorial. In the judgement the apex court voided the Igbo law and custom, which forbids daughters from inheriting their late father’s estate. We must not relent but must change the acceptability of violence and address the violent masculinity, unequal power relations and transform gender dynamics in the society.

By: Nkechi Bright Ewere