NO MORE SILENCE! DO NOT COVER UP RAPE OFFENDERS, NO MATTER WHO COMMITS IT-L.I.F.E.

The Leadership Initiative for Youth Empowerment, L.I.F.E., an organization dedicated to empowering youth and vulnerable women, has demanded a zero tolerance for Rape and urged communities to expose perpetrators 

Oluwatoyin Mokwe, Programme Officer at the Leadership Initiative for Youth Empowerment (LIFE), recently addressing a townhall meeting at Ishaga in Isolo,Lagos.

Cablenews24 reports that Oluwatoyin Mokwe, Programme Officer at the Leadership Initiative for Youth Empowerment (LIFE), who made this powerful and passionate appeal during a townhall meeting, as part of its ongoing campaign against Gender-Based Violence (GBV), focused specifically on breaking the pervasive culture of silence and complicity surrounding rape and sexual assault.

Held at the Ishaga Community Hall, the event focused squarely on “Scaling Up Leadership of Female Survivors for Effective GBV Response and Access to Justice.”  It had in attendance community leaders, youth groups, women’s associations, and representatives from the Isolo Police Division and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), united by a common goal- empowering survivors to lead the fight for justice.

Mrs. Mokwe confronted the damaging practice where families and communities shield rapists – often because of familial ties, social status, fear of stigma, or financial pressure. “Enough is enough!” rape is a grievous crime, a violation that shatters live, and one of the greatest injustices that follows is when we, as a community, become accomplices by covering up for the perpetrator.”

She emphasized the critical importance of collective responsibility: “It doesn’t matter if the offender is your brother, your uncle, your father, a respected elder, a wealthy man, or a religious leader. Rape is rape. Protecting the perpetrator is a betrayal of the survivor and an attack on the safety of every woman and girl. It tells offenders they can act with impunity.”

The meeting, recognizing that survivors hold the deepest understanding of systemic barriers, aimed to move beyond simply providing services to actively integrating survivor voices into the design, implementation, and monitoring of GBV response mechanisms, particularly concerning navigating the justice system.

The L.I.F.E. programme officer at the Leadership Initiative for Youth Empowerment (LIFE), highlights the persistent cultural and systemic barriers confronting survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) in Nigeria.

Mokwe recounted how a woman who was beaten up by her husband came to L.I.F.E.’s office with visible injuries, swelling on her head and bite marks across her back. She didn’t have to say too much; the evidence on her body told the story. We immediately sprang into action with a response team.

She said they reported the abuse to the appropriate police division, but she got a shocker of her life that instead of empathy or get the urgency deserved given the nature of the matter, what the police officer was so indifference and a-blame-game on the victim: ‘What did you do? your mouth must be running?”

Mokwe recalled that the man in his 60s was eventually arrested, the backlash from the woman’s community and her landlord was enormous and harsh. They said such a thing has never happened in the community that a woman will report her husband and arrest him with police. She said that the landlord was angry told her that it’s a taboo to arrest someone you’ve had children with and asked her not to return to the house.  She said the woman rented the house, pays the rent, that surprisingly by nightfall, she had nowhere to go.

She also spoke on safe abortion- another emotional case involving a young girl who suffered organ damage after trying with her classmates to terminate her pregnancy with herbal concoctions. “Unsafe abortion is a growing crisis. Girls as young as JSS students have no access to accurate information, so they resort to dangerous methods,” Mokwe said.

It’s so tragic: “A 13-year-old Junior Secondary School Student got pregnant, and with three of her friends, they attempted to terminate the pregnancy on their own. “The girl bled severely and eventually lost her womb.” She recalled another incident where a woman underwent an abortion by a quack Doctor.

She said “During the procedure, the woman’s intestines were pulled out, and the person responsible fled but she was later saved at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH).” According to a surgeon at LASUTH, between 150 and 200 women undergo abortions at the Hospital yearly, with many suffering from severe complications.

Mokwe happed on the importance of parental communication and urged mothers to establish open relationships with their daughters to foster trust and open dialogue. “Mothers should regularly talk to their daughters about sex and other important aspects of womanhood. If they don’t learn from home, they’ll learn from the internet.”  “Young girls go to labs pretending they’re there for tests, but they are often there for abortions. Some parents are even complicit, buying abortion pills for their daughters,” she said.

According to her, Nigeria has one of the highest rates of unsafe abortions globally. “Unwanted pregnancies, often from peer pressure or lack of sexual education, are the root cause. A doctor once told us that over 200 cases of organ damage from unsafe abortion are recorded each year.”

L.I.F.E, known for its focus on nurturing youth leadership and civic engagement, identified GBV as a critical barrier to community development and individual potential in Ishaga. Statistics and anecdotal evidence point to alarming rates of domestic violence, sexual assault, and harmful traditional practices often shrouded in silence and stigma.

LIFE is currently executing three major projects, two of which focus on tackling GBV and a third targeting maternal mortality linked to unsafe abortions. The projects are supported by Amplify and the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) — aim not only to raise awareness, but also to provide tangible support such as legal aid, healthcare, and emergency shelter for survivors.

The Leadership initiative for youth empowerment “LIFE” is an NGO that has been in existence since 2012. It is co-founded by Mrs. Abiodun Rufus to promote equity and development amongst youth in Nigeria with the purpose of improving the lives of young people and also supporting vulnerable females.

With the support of African Women Development Fund (AWDF), L.I.F.E. is implementing a 32-month project to enhance amplifying Voices of Female Survivors for Effective Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Response in Oshodi-Isolo Local Government Area, Lagos, Nigeria.

The project’s overall goal is to improve protection from sexual and gender-based violence for young girls and women through the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Law (VAPP) 2015 Law of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The project is also trains community advocates drawn from existing community groups and local institutions to raise awareness on the provisions of the law for protection from rape, female genital mutilation, domestic violence, and female trafficking among grassroots communities in Oshodi-Isolo Local Government Area.

The project funded by AWDF provides training for 80 community champions who will return to their communities and conduct knowledge transfer sessions to reach 8000 community members in 4 months in Oshodi-Isolo LGA.

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