Nigeria has deployed a nationwide reporting platform to track violence against women cases from initial reporting through investigation, prosecution and conviction, in a major step towards strengthening accountability and access to justice for survivors.
The platform was developed by the Federal Ministry of Justice with support from the EU Support to End Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (ESGBV) Programme in Nigeria and implemented by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA).
It was unveiled on Monday in Abuja at the Deployment and Operationalisation of the Violence Against Women (VAW) Reporting Platform and National Validation and Capacity-Building Workshop on the VAW Reporting System.
Organisers described the platform as Nigeria’s first standardised justice-sector VAW reporting system, designed to consolidate case information from states into a central national database and provide visibility on the progress and outcomes of cases.
Speaking at the event, GBV Policy and Strategy Development Specialist with the ESGBV Programme at International IDEA, Melissa Omene, said the platform was developed to address persistent weaknesses in Nigeria’s response to violence against women, particularly fragmented data and poor tracking of cases after they are reported.
“Reporting violence is only the beginning of a survivor’s journey. What happens after reporting matters just as much as the reporting itself,” Omene said.
She said an assessment involving 112 respondents from 32 institutions across the Federal Capital Territory, Benue, Kaduna and Oyo states identified significant gaps in data coordination, investigation, evidence management and justice-sector monitoring.
Omene disclosed that the National GBV Dashboard recorded 4,449 GBV cases in the first half of 2023, bringing the total number of cases recorded nationwide since the dashboard was launched in 2020 to more than 19,000.
She said the figures underscored the need for an integrated system capable of tracking cases beyond the initial reporting stage.
The Head of the Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Unit at the Federal Ministry of Justice, Yewande Gbola-Awopetu, said the effectiveness of the platform would depend largely on the accuracy and consistency of information provided by designated desk officers.
“Every field you complete, every case status you update, and every follow-up you log becomes part of the evidence base,” she said.
Gbola-Awopetu disclosed that the National Human Rights Commission had recorded more than 33,000 SGBV cases between January and May, while the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons documented more than 3,000 cases of violence against women in the FCT.
She said the figures further demonstrated the urgency of improving documentation and tracking to establish what happens to cases after survivors report violations.
The National Consultant for the VAW Reporting System at International IDEA, Agharinma Ehiedu, said the platform would integrate information previously scattered across different state-level systems into a single national database.
According to him, justice-sector institutions would be able to access nationwide data without having to approach individual states separately.
“You can know how many offenders you have, how many cases have been convicted, and those that are pending trial across the country,” Ehiedu said.
He added that members of the public would also be able to report violations through the platform, with cases subsequently referred to relevant state desk officers for action.
Ehiedu said the system would provide “full visibility of what is happening” to violence-against-women cases across Nigeria.
Violence against women remains a major human rights, public health and justice challenge in the country, encompassing physical, sexual and psychological violence, domestic abuse, harmful practices, trafficking and other forms of exploitation.
Stakeholders have long identified fragmented case management as a major obstacle to effective intervention. Cases may move through the police, health facilities, social welfare agencies, human rights institutions, prosecutors and courts, with information often maintained separately by each institution.
The resulting data gaps make it difficult to determine how many reported cases progress to investigation, prosecution and conviction.
Under-reporting also remains a major challenge, with survivors often deterred by stigma, fear of retaliation, economic dependence, distrust of institutions and concerns over the consequences of pursuing justice.
Nigeria has established several legal and institutional mechanisms to combat gender-based violence, including the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act 2015, which criminalises various forms of physical, sexual and psychological violence and provides protections and remedies for victims and survivors.
However, effective implementation requires stronger enforcement, institutional coordination and, where applicable, domestication of the law at the state level.
The country’s response involves the Federal Ministry of Justice, Nigeria Police Force, National Human Rights Commission, NAPTIP, health and social welfare agencies, state ministries and civil society organisations.
The new platform is expected to complement these structures by creating a mechanism for capturing, monitoring and following cases across the justice chain.
Beyond generating statistics, the system could enable authorities to identify bottlenecks, including delays in investigation and prosecution, while supporting evidence-based policy, resource allocation and institutional accountability.
For survivors, however, its ultimate measure of success will be whether reported cases receive timely attention and whether perpetrators are effectively prosecuted and brought to justice.
The ESGBV Programme and International IDEA said the deployment was designed to move Nigeria’s response beyond simply recording incidents to ensuring that cases remain visible throughout the justice process until appropriate outcomes are achieved.
