On Sunday, June 30, Nigerian women organized a protest against sexual violence in the church following recent allegations by the wife of a popular singer that the Commonwealth of Zion Assembly (COZA) general overseer pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo raped her when she was 17 years old. [...]
Nigerian women have had a lot to protest lately. In May, there were significant protests after mass arrests of women in clubs and bars at night for alleged prostitution in Abuja, the federal capital city. It’s worth noting none of the men who were apparently being solicited shared the same fate. Soon after their release some of the women shared grim stories of rape and extortion at the hands of the police. The police promised an investigation but not before the assistant superintendent of Police in an interview justified the mass arrests because women “are not supposed to be hanging around outside clubs.” [...]
Beyond these recent happenings, Nigeria’s statistics on women’s well-being don’t make for pleasant reading. Up to19% of Nigerian girls have already started childbearing by the age of 15. By the age of 19, the number rises to 37%. Nigeria’s adolescent fertility rate in Nigeria is 120 births per 1,000 women aged 15–19 years. In its last jobs report of 2018, the National Bureau of Statistics showed that 26.6% of women – compared to 20.3% of men – able and willing to work are unemployed, which marks a 5.4% year-on-year increase from what it was in 2017.
