BY PATRICIA TAFT AND HANNAH BLYTH

As we come together to celebrate International Women’s Day, we are reminded there are still many areas of the world where women and children face violence and insecurity. In Nigeria, sexual abuse and violence perpetrated against women and children remains prevalent in communities throughout the country.

The Fund For Peace’s (FFP) Violence Affecting Women and Girls (VAWG) initiative, implemented in partnership with the Nigeria Stability and Reconciliation Programme (NSRP), aims to break the culture of silence around gender-based violence. Through improving incident reporting and combining local knowledge with cutting edge technology to better understand patterns and trends in VAWG throughout Nigeria, the program aims to foster early response and preventative action. We work closely with civil society organizations on the ground in the North, North Central, Middle Belt, and Niger Delta regions of Nigeria to track the main threats to women and children in five key states. The following reports summarize these findings and propose practical steps that could be taken to help end the abuse and ensure the safety and security of women and children throughout the country:

Impacts of Violence on Women and Girls in Kaduna – March 2017
Impacts of Conflict, Violence on Women and Girls in Nigeria’s Plateau State – November 2016
The Abuse of Trust in Nigeria’s Rivers State – October 2016
Child Sexual Assault and Violence in Nigeria’s Kano State – October 2016
Confronting the Unthinkable: Suicide Bombers in Northern Nigeria – February 2016

These reports are based on research conducted by the Fund for Peace over the past two years as well as a series of interviews conducted over a weeklong period in Maiduguri, Borno state, and Abuja, FCT, in November and December, 2015. It is also based on analyzed data generated by the NSRP VAWG Observatory Platform, the Partners for Peace (P4P) Map (including data from Nigeria Watch and the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project– ACLED). The Council on Foreign Relations’ Nigeria Security Tracker (NST), was also used in the research and writing of this report. All views expressed are solely those of FFP and are not reflective of its funders or partners.