NIGERIA
CONTEXT
Nigeria, a federal state located in the Gulf of Guinea, is the most populous country in Africa and the continent's leading economic power. Yet, this African giant has been plagued by instability since the early 2000s with the arrival of armed groups on its territory.
The state of Borno, located in the northeast of the country, has been particularly affected. This region, the most remote from Abuja, the center of power, has suffered from the insurgency of the armed group Boko Haram and its splinter factions since 2009. Today, multiple armed groups operate in the region, and Borno State is experiencing a severe humanitarian crisis.
The conflict has resulted in more than 40,000 deaths [1] and over 2.5 million displaced people in the region. Civilians have been particularly impacted by the fighting between the regular army and insurgent militias. As is too often the case, women and children are the primary victims of these clashes.
All parties involved in the conflict have committed atrocities against civilians, making sexual violence a true weapon of terror, punishment, and control. These atrocities are widespread and systematic, occurring in Boko Haram camps, refugee camps, prisons, and villages. Sexual violence is not only used to terrorize civilian populations but also serves political purposes. Women and girls abducted by Boko Haram are subjected to sexual exploitation in the camps and are sometimes given as "rewards" to fighters deemed worthy [2]. Meanwhile, certain Nigerian military forces exploit the vulnerability of these women and girls to coerce them into sexual violence through blackmail [3].
While women and girls are the primary victims of these crimes, men are also affected. However, the stigma surrounding sexual violence against men is even greater, often silencing them. To date, it remains nearly impossible to accurately assess the number of male victims in the region.
This conflict remains largely absent from the international media scene, except for a few high-profile events, such as the abduction of the Chibok girls in April 2014. Yet, victims continue to suffer in deafening silence. Survivors of sexual violence receive very little support due to multiple barriers: deeply rooted stigma in Bornoan society, distrust of the judicial and security systems of government forces, and a lack of specialized structures.
Despite the efforts of some organizations to document crimes and identify victims in Borno State, these initiatives remain scattered and poorly coordinated. As a result, the monitoring and support of survivors are not guaranteed, leading to unmet expectations and a sense of abandonment among many victims. Moreover, impunity remains the norm, as the perpetrators of these atrocities are rarely brought to justice.
THE PROJECT
“Nigeria: innovative technologies to prevent and combat sexual violence”
In June 2023, WWoW, in consortium with Libraries Without Borders (Bibliothèques Sans Frontières - BSF), won the "Humanitarian Innovation" call for projects from the Crisis and Support Center (CDCS) of the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE). BSF and WWoW decided to join forces to collaborate on a common objective: developing contextualized online and offline technologies and content to prevent and combat conflict- and crisis-related sexual violence, relying on civil society and local communities. The project officially began on November 1, 2023, and will run for 18 months.
This project in northeastern Nigeria marks a crucial step in scaling up the deployment of the BackUp tool. After multiple proof-of-concept phases conducted between 2018 and 2021 in Libya, Rwanda, Burundi, and Guinea-Conakry, this initiative represents the first medium-term pilot deployment of the tool in its final version.
The deployment follows WWoW's established methodology, ensuring a rigorous assessment of the tool's impact and effectiveness directly on the ground. Since BackUp's creation in 2017, WWoW has worked with its exclusive partner, IntechLux, responsible for its development and maintenance.
On the ground, WWoW is working with its strategic partner, the Grassroots Researchers Association (GRA), a well-established local Nigerian NGO in northeastern Nigeria. Thanks to a grant, GRA has become WWoW’s operational partner, particularly in awareness-raising activities, data collection, and coordination with local communities.
WWoW also involves Chibok survivors and works closely with survivor networks, community and religious leaders, as well as local civil society organizations.
OBJECTIVES
This project in northern Nigeria aligns with WWoW’s global strategy to develop accessible, functional, and agile tools that improve the documentation of conflict- and crisis-related sexual violence and amplify the voices of survivors.
More specifically, the project aims to:
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Enable victims of sexual violence, or third parties, to securely report crimes via the BackUp platform.
Ensure that victims, even in the most remote areas, can report themselves and be identified by developing an offline version of BackUp, leveraging BSF’s offline internet solutions.
Facilitate access to support services for victims of serious crimes, through health personnel mapping conducted by WWoW teams in Maiduguri and surrounding areas.
Provide access to contextualized content on conflict-related sexual violence in the region through BackUp’s new informational feature (currently in development) and BSF’s digital libraries.
Collect, store, and secure information on Back Office, WWoW’s criminal analysis tool, to preserve and protect evidence integrity.
Centralize collected data on sexual violence crimes in the region to produce reports and advocacy materials aimed at influencing public policies over time.
Strengthen the capacities of survivor networks and civil society organizations.
Coordinate needs with international stakeholders, particularly the Office of the UN SRSG on Sexual Violence in Conflict, the Mukwege Foundation, and UN agencies present in the region.
Support legal proceedings at both national and international levels.
PROJECT NEWS
FEBRUARY 2024
A preliminary field mission was conducted from February 11 to 18, 2024, in the city of Maiduguri, in Borno State, northeastern Nigeria, by two WWoW experts and two BSF staff members.
This first mission provided an opportunity to engage with survivors, religious and traditional leaders, civil society organizations, and international organizations.
It also helped to identify urgent needs, determine suitable areas for deploying BackUp and BSF’s Ideas Cube, and assess general requirements for the prevention and response to sexual violence.
OCTOBER 2024
A second WWoW mission took place from October 15 to 22, 2024.
This mission allowed for the formalization of the partnership framework between WWoW and GRA, and, most importantly, the finalization of the operational strategy for project implementation. This included the selection of the first beneficiary communities and the identification of deployment sites for awareness-raising activities on the project and the BackUp tool.
During this mission, joint teams from WWoW, BSF, and GRA strengthened their cooperation, established an operational work plan, and developed an awareness strategy on the project, the technological tools, and issues related to conflict-related sexual violence, for the benefit of both the targeted communities and key stakeholders.
JANUARY 2024
In collaboration with GRA, local and operational partner in Nigeria, WWoW launched in January a series of focus groups with representatives of local communities; survivors, influential women, representatives of survivor networks, etc., who were previously identified.
These sessions will continue over several months, with the goal of:
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Presenting the project and the technological tools being deployed.
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Raising awareness on the prevention, care, and documentation of conflict-related sexual violence.
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Creating safe spaces for dialogue to better understand the needs of survivors and adapt our response.
PROJECT BENEFITS
By leveraging BSF's offline internet solutions, WWoW will be able to develop an offline version of the BackUp tool, which will now be accessible in areas with limited or no connectivity.
The prevention component of BackUp will be strengthened by the addition of an informational feature, allowing users to access content related to conflict-related sexual violence.
The project aims to build connections, particularly with survivors, to exchange experiences, understand their needs, and amplify their voices at an international level.
The deployment will anchor WWoW's actions in the region and lay the groundwork for a larger-scale deploymentacross the Sahel and Gulf of Guinea region in the long term.
Finally, it will contribute to the development of a model for investigating sexual crimes, currently being deployed in another area, in order to establish a methodology that quickly substantiates the commission of these crimes during atrocities and helps alert and support judicial procedures through the rapid collection of evidence.
REFERENCES
[1] NIGERIA WATCH, nigeriawatch.org, 2024
[2] INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP, “Nigeria: Women and the Boko Haram Insurgency”, 5 décembre 2016
[3] AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, 'THEY BETRAYED US' WOMEN WHO SURVIVED BOKO HARAM RAPED, STARVED AND DETAINED IN NIGERIA’, 2018