More than 19,000 gender-based violence (GBV) cases have been logged in Nigeria since the National GBV Dashboard was launched in 2020, with 4,449 cases recorded in the first half of 2023 alone.

Separately, the National Human Rights Commission documented more than 33,000 sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) cases between January and May of the reporting year, while the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons recorded more than 3,000 cases of violence against women in the Federal Capital Territory.

Behind the figures, however, lies a persistent challenge: the gap between reporting violence and securing justice.

Only a fraction of reported cases have resulted in convictions. Hundreds have been closed without resolution, while many others remain pending within the justice system.

Mrs Yewande Gbola-Awopetu, Head of the SGBV Unit at the Federal Ministry of Justice, attributed part of the challenge to inadequate evidence documentation and inconsistent case tracking, which she said continue to undermine successful prosecutions.

According to Mrs Melissa Omene, GBV Policy and Strategy Development Specialist at International IDEA’s ESGBV Programme, Nigeria has established laws, policies and institutions designed to protect women and girls but continues to face challenges with implementation, accountability and monitoring.

An assessment she cited, covering the Federal Capital Territory, Benue, Kaduna and Oyo states and involving 112 respondents from 32 institutions, found significant fragmentation in existing data systems, with no coordinated justice-sector reporting mechanism in place.

“Institutions continue to collect data using different tools, methodologies and reporting standards, which make it difficult to generate a comprehensive picture of what is happening in Nigeria,” Omene said.

“What happens to cases after they are reported?” she asked.

The Federal Ministry of Justice has developed a standardized national platform designed to address this gap by tracking cases from the point of reporting through to resolution.

The system provides justice institutions with a central mechanism for tracking reported cases, prosecutions, convictions and pending matters while generating standardized data to support policy development, monitoring and accountability.

Its deployment was announced during a five-day national workshop organized under the EU-backed ESGBV Programme and implemented by International IDEA in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Justice.

The workshop focused on validating reporting tools, strengthening reporting standards and training SGBV desk officers responsible for collecting and managing case information.

Mr Agharinma Ehiedu, National Consultant for the VAW Reporting System at International IDEA, said the platform was developed in response to the absence of a central system for violence against women data in Nigeria.

He explained that states have traditionally collected SGBV information using different approaches, making it difficult to establish a consistent national picture.

“The platform is aimed at centralizing them, for uniformity’s sake, standardizing, and then, from a single point, anyone in the justice system can have full visibility of what is happening around any reported cases,” Ehiedu said.

According to him, justice institutions will be able to access information on reported cases, offenders, convictions and pending trials nationwide without having to contact individual state authorities for separate data.

The platform will also provide members of the public with a channel for reporting cases, with reports automatically routed to the relevant state desk officer for follow-up.

Omene said the standardized data generated by the platform would enable federal and state justice ministries to monitor the implementation of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act and other relevant laws, while strengthening accountability across the justice system.

“Reporting violence is only the beginning of a survivor’s journey. What happens after reporting matters just as much as the reporting itself,” she said.

“Survivors need investigations, they need prosecutions, they need protection mechanisms, and justice outcomes that are visible, measurable and accountable.”

Gbola-Awopetu stressed that the effectiveness of the new system would depend largely on the quality of records maintained by the officers responsible for managing cases.

She urged SGBV desk officers participating in the training to ensure that records are accurate, complete and submitted on time.

She described the training as an investment not only in the integrity of Nigeria’s national data on violence against women and children but also in the coordination required to move cases from initial reports to meaningful justice outcomes.

Ms Shirley Atane, Special Assistant on Gender and Vulnerable Persons in the Office of the Attorney-General of Ekiti State and Legal Adviser to the state’s First Lady, highlighted Ekiti State as an example of how political commitment and established legal frameworks can support responses to GBV.

She said the state has established a referral pathway, a standard operating procedure for GBV intervention and other policies aimed at protecting survivors.

However, Atane identified funding as a major challenge to sustaining and expanding such interventions.

She noted that implementing and enforcing existing laws and policies requires adequate resources and called for increased budgetary allocations and funding support to translate policies into practical services for survivors.

As Nigeria rolls out a centralized system for tracking violence against women cases, the effectiveness of the platform will depend not only on the technology itself but also on consistent data collection, effective coordination among institutions, adequate resources and sustained follow-through on reported cases.

By Umm e Habiba, Pakistan