Tessy is sitting restless at a corner at home alone trying so hard to stop reminiscing the horrendous incidence that happened to her. Talking aside, she wished the passage of time can bury her emotional pain instantly. But No! She still has to answer all sorts of questions to defend herself and clear the air despite being a victim of online attack and bullying.
“I kept telling the society I was unconscious but only a few believed me,” she tearfully narrated.
Tessy, 19, was drugged, raped and filmed at a party she was invited to by a Facebook friend.
“I didn’t know my soft drink was drugged. All I remembered was that I ended up in a room where I was raped” she recalled with pity.
Shortly after, Tessy received a shocking video clip from her Facebook friends showing how they had uncanny sexual affairs with her during the first party incident. The video was recorded and meant to compel her to attend another party with the evil friends after she outrightly turned down their second invite. The clip was accompanied with a message threatening to leak the video which they later did.
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“I was in denial when I saw the video on a WhatsApp status but couldn’t do anything to stop the clips from going viral,” Tessy narrated while crying profusely.
Tessy is not the only teenager who have to battle with such online violence for an incident that happened without her consent.
Angel, 19, experienced cyber trolling and bullying whenever she talks about “women’s right” or “sex and sexuality” online.
Angel’s reaction stood out when she rhetorically asked “why no women-focused protest had gained that amount of attention and why women who hadn’t come for any rape protest going all out for #ENDSARS Protest.”
“I was insulted and received rape and death threats via calls and messages,” she said.
Such backlash tends to limit women participation in the social and public sphere which denigrate the exercise of the Fundamental Human Rights and rights of women.
Statistics from the National Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, shows that 1 in 10 women (9.7%) and 1 in 43 men (2.3%) have experienced stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Similarly, 1 in 3 women (39.7%) and 1 in 2 men (41.1%) have experienced coercive control by an intimate partner in their life.
To corroborate this statistics, Barka 21, recalls how a Facebook picture nearly messed up his first academic year in school.
“I was online when I saw my picture in UnimaidGist with a caption, ‘Part one student going for lecture with shorts’ which was greeted with a lot of mockery and sympathising comments on the post” Barka explained.
“I dare not go to lectures with such clothes, I didn’t know how the guy snapped me and it was hard to wrap my head around it” he said.
For Usman, 30, the story is slightly different, when he posted his picture and a write-up on social media, calling on the National Assembly to rescind the rejection of the 5 gender bills. He was at the protest with Nigerian women asking for the same and decided to take his advocacy online.
“A friend of mine saw the picture and was disappointed I am advocating for the course, saying ‘so you are in support of women ruling over men and having a say in decision-making position’…They now want to take over the public space too?” Usman narrated further.
These are some of incidences that have been raging in silence in Nigeria. however, many believed that cultural barriers are, large part, responsible for restraining people from coming out to talk about it.
For instance, Nwankwo in African Women in Media 2022 cited Davider Kaur saying “Culture is no excuse for abuse”, yet there are still gaps in achieving equal gender representation in Nigeria regardless of discrimination and safety for all.
We all should practise and promote digital consent and safety for the attainment of a violence free society that strives for equal gender rights.
INTERVIEW EXCERPT FROM STORIES COLLECTED BY EDUCATION AS A VACCINE (EVA) with Funding from LUMINATE
©EVA
© Zainab Yetunde Adam, Maiduguri
