The federal government has described the scale of gender-based violence in Nigeria as a national emergency after official data showed 2,755 cases were formally documented between January and April 2026, with only 4 percent of those cases resulting in successful prosecution, leaving the vast majority of survivors without justice.
Minister of Women Affairs Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, announcing the figures at a Memorandum of Understanding signing in Abuja, said the data translated to an average of 23 reported incidents of gender-based violence every day, with women and girls accounting for 81 percent of survivors and sexual violence making up 82 percent of all reported cases. The most severely affected demographic was girls aged 10 to 14.
She said the structural impunity rate of 96 percent reflected bottlenecks across the reporting, investigation, prosecution, and conviction pipeline that went far beyond the capacity of any single ministry to resolve alone, and that the government was approaching the problem from multiple directions simultaneously: addressing root causes, strengthening prevention, and building better protection infrastructure for survivors. She said Nigeria’s current 50 shelter and support centers for a population of over 200 million people and a vast land mass was clearly inadequate.
Under the MOU, the New Era Foundation’s Patient’s Home in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, originally opened in 2019 for childless widows and vulnerable women, would be converted into a Women’s Support and Rehabilitation Home providing temporary shelter, mental health services, trauma care, legal support, and economic empowerment programs. The National Primary Health Care Development Agency would provide technical leadership for medical support, counselling, and quality assurance at the center.
