According to the United Nation population fund study, 28% of Nigerian women between the ages of 25-29 have been victims of physical violence since the age of 15. Gender-based violence has been a predominant social problem in Nigeria with victims being mostly women and the girl child. The country’s most common acts of violence against women include sexual harassment, rape, child marriage, physical violence, harmful traditional practices, emotional and psychological violence, and socio-economic violence.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 1 in 3 women would be subjected to either physical, sexual intimate partner violence, or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime. This alarming figure is also supported by the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey which states that 30% of females between 15-49 years have experienced sexual violence.
With these rising statistics, it is not out of place for solution-seeking initiatives to sprout, trying to curb incidences.

Solomon Ayodele-led Boys Quarter Africa through the Project SABI Initiative seeks to stimulate a nation-wide movement aimed at ending all forms of violence against Women and Girls, by capacity strengthening strategic, multi-dimensional engagement lead by Men and Boys as advocates, empower victims and young people across the project states, with necessary information on their roles as responders, using diverse communication and reporting channels, and the need to mobilize mass voices to collectively speak out against this act.

This practical cum solutions-driven project would be broken into SABI Town Hall for Men, Speak Up Town Hall for Women, Boys Club for Boys and the curation of a Social Construct Platform for learning, awareness and development.

With men being represented as the number one perpetrators of GBV, especially in a highly patriarchal Nigerian society where culture and religion are further weaponized to subjugate women, getting men to become champions for causes like this can be difficult. To tackle the issue cohesively the Project Sabi team went into the informal parts of the 3 selected states and mapped out areas that had the most cases of gender-based violence.

What Project Sabi did was engage 1000 boys and 1000 men across motor parks and schools. As they sought to speak to men who were old enough and aware of their misogynistic tendencies, they also reached out to growing boys who will form the population of the next generation of men.

Across Abuja, Lagos and Enugu, Project Sabi launched town halls, training, and sensitization programs for members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) religious leaders and market persons. Boys in schools were given GBV manuals and “Boys against Gender-Based Violence” clubs were set up.

As Project Sabi continues to help close the gap and offer channels for justice when it comes to GBV, they also seek to sensitize the public by making use of the online space via their social contract platform which helps people to check their misogynistic tendencies and Sabi level.

The central objective of Project SABI is to galvanize men and localize the messaging around Ending Violence against Women and Girls, considering the extent and depth of sexism and male dominance as an enabling factor for this silent pandemic (VAWG).