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Her Media Diary Episode 11: "I want to help the survivors" with Soyem Osakwe
18 Plays2 years ago
Soyem Osakwe is a specialist in Global communications, campaigns and advocacy. In this episode, Soyem speaks passionately about her work using effective communications strategies to raise awareness and advocate against gender-based violence. If you are a journalist or content creator, if you work for an NGO or simply want to lend your voice to real change, then you'd want to listen to this episode as Soyem shares essential tips on how she has successfully worked with ambassadors, celebrities and influencers in fighting for justice for survivors and victims of gender-based violence.
Soyem's episode will be released on 14 November 2022. Subscribe to Her Media Diary now on your favourite podcasting platform https://linktr.ee/hermediadiary
#HerMediaDiary
List of organisations that support survivors
Women Empowerment and Legal Aid (WELA): https://welaonline.org/
MUSASA: https://www.musasa.co.zw/
Masimanyane Women’s Rights International: https://www.masimanyane.org/
Gender Violence Recovery Centre (GVRC): https://gvrc.or.ke/
The Gender-based Violence Command Centre (GBVCC): https://gbv.org.za/about-us/
FORWARDUK: https://www.forwarduk.org.uk/i-need-help/
Woman’s Aid: https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
I've always been angry with situations that showed some level of injustice. So I've seen how sexual abuse can change the life of a survivor. I've seen situations where somebody was abused their life. We've seen three month old babies get ripped. We've seen 80 year old women get ripped. So there's really no basis for any of these kinds of biases and conversations.
Guest Introduction: Soyem Ozakwe
00:00:28
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of Her Media Diary, a podcast that captures the lived experiences of African women working in media industries. I am Dr. Yemci Akim Bobola, your host. And in this episode, I'm joined by Soyem Ozakwe, a multidisciplinary global communications specialist.
00:00:47
Speaker
researcher and corporate trainer. Sohyam is passionate about social change and she's done a lot of work around gender-based violence advocacy, working with organizations like Partner for Justice, the Marable Center and Clean Foundation. In this episode, Sohyam and I look at the impact of sexual harassment and gender-based violence reporting on survivors and the approaches she believes are best as a communications specialist.
Research Insights: Barriers in Media
00:01:12
Speaker
Now, to give some context, in 2020, African Women in Media and Foyo Media Institute conducted research that looked at barriers faced by African women working in media, one of the most prominent barriers for sexual harassment. And throughout this series, we'll be in conversation with African women working in a range of media industries to discuss the various issues that emerged from the research.
00:01:34
Speaker
By inviting these voices into conversation, we hope to provide solutions to break down barriers faced by African women in media. Before we start though, a quick disclaimer to our listeners. Sexual harassment and gender-based violence is a sensitive topic and one that can be distressing and triggering. In these show notes, we have included links to helplines, support groups and organizations that specialize in supporting survivors of sexual harassment and violence.
Career Path and Advocacy Passion
00:02:02
Speaker
All right, so Sohyem, it's a pleasure to speak with you today and to have you on this podcast on this very important topic around sexual harassment and gender-based violence. But let's start with getting to know you a bit more. Sohyem, tell us about you and all the way back, way back when. Okay, thank you. It's so good to be here and to talk to someone about this. So my name is Sohyem and I'm a communications consultant, studied mass communication
00:02:29
Speaker
And then I have a master's in marketing communications and currently studying for a second master's in global communications. So it's like... We love studying, don't we? Us Nigerians like studying. Or Africans generally. So second and third masters are not all good. Yeah. So in the last four, five years, I've been working with women and NGOs that support survivors of gender-based violence, specifically sexual violence.
00:02:59
Speaker
And my work really started with Partnership for Justice, which is the other managers of the Mirabelle Center and the Nana Khadija Centers in Sukkutu and Lagos respectively. And some of the work I've done since I've been there is basically to tell the story of survivors who normally wouldn't get the exposure as not just talking about the assault, rather
00:03:24
Speaker
talking about the problem of gender-based violence in Nigeria and the challenges that NGOs like the Mirabelle Center face in trying to support survivors in terms of, is there medical help? Is there psychosocial help? What do
From Broadcasting to Public Relations
00:03:38
Speaker
survivors grapple with in terms of how do they even come forward in the first place? What challenges do they face when they report abuse to police officers? Are they further victimized?
00:03:49
Speaker
So things like that. So I highlight the issues regarding sexual violence and I've been working with both NGOs. So I've worked with Mirabelle Center. I've worked with Nana Khadija Center in Sukkutu. I've also trained women advocacy groups, Klim Foundation and the Union Women, I think 2021 sponsored about 40 women advocacy groups in Lagos who basically deal with
00:04:13
Speaker
sex trafficking and human trafficking and the concern really was about gender-based violence because survivors of that also experienced that, so training them about media and communication. So that's basically what I do, but I've also done a bit of work for the private sector as well.
00:04:29
Speaker
Yeah. Before we get into the nitty gritty of this very heavy topic, let's know a bit about you though. Like, you know, tell us where you're from. Like, what's your background? What, you know, your history, your story. Okay. Uh, I'm from Delta State. And like I said, I studied mass comm. I wanted to be a broadcaster when I was going into study mass communication. Why did you want to be a broadcaster? What led you down that path? I think I was, um, inspired like, uh, by people like, um, Eugene Abou, um, NTA, Tokumbo Ajayi, those were the,
00:04:59
Speaker
ladies then who were, you know, there was a way with the way they talked about the news and I felt it was interesting. So I always wanted to be a broadcaster. But when I got to school, I realized
00:05:12
Speaker
maybe not broadcasting, maybe PR. So I tilted more towards public relations. Let's pick up on that a second, because we've done research that actually looks at the difference between the number of women that go into studying journalism, broadcast, and all that, versus the number of women that enter the industry, because a lot of them then switch to that more PR communications kind of background. So it'll be interesting to hear from your perspective, like, why this switch?
00:05:40
Speaker
I think at the time I was looking at prospects for job and for growth. And I looked, I was like, okay, NT seems to be like the hallmark of broadcasting. That was the
Impact of Media Reporting
00:05:54
Speaker
time, I mean, the stations like channels. I went on to try on NN24. In fact, I presented sports on NT to be precise, because I am a football fan. So I presented sports as an intern on NT.
00:06:08
Speaker
but I never really thought it was going to be my thing. I always wanted to do several things at the same time. So maybe that spurred my movement from one to another. I mean, I'm still interested in TV and stuff like that, but it's not like a crucial thing for me. So what was that like presenting sports on NT? Like how did that even happen? So at the time we had like a mandatory internship, which we had to do in our 300 level. Industrial training, I think they called it.
00:06:35
Speaker
I went to NTVN and I had a mentor there. He was in the sports presenter and he was like, look, you talk football. Are you sure you won't go on air today? And I was terrified. I was like, really? Okay. I went and I presented football and people were calling like, okay, who's this girl talking football? So I enjoyed it. Okay. I still got to, you know, present and all of that, but I was terrified truly in front of the camera.
00:07:01
Speaker
But yeah, I enjoyed it very much. But I always thought that maybe storytelling for organizations was more my thing towards the completion of my first degree. So how did you get into that? Because you've set out already a few organizations you've worked with and for in the last few years. So how did you get into that storytelling for social impact release is what you do, isn't it? Yeah, correct. I think it started with so I had experience with PR with advertising.
00:07:31
Speaker
because after I graduated, I worked with international agencies that had done some PR, social media, digital campaigns. But towards mid-2018, I became quite maybe upset. I think I was seeing a lot of
00:07:46
Speaker
stories about rape in the news. And it just really bothered me. And I just kept wondering, what can I do? And I realized that the more I thought about it, the angry I became. So I started writing nonprofit organizations who were women centered. Do you need help with communications? I can volunteer to do this for you for free. I'm not going to charge you anything.
00:08:08
Speaker
Coincidentally, I think it was just the Mirabelle Center that I reached out and said, okay, yeah, we have someone in house, but we would like you to really help us
Amplifying Advocacy through Media
00:08:16
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with this. And at the time I'd really built, because I'd had some experience with digital communications, done campaigns and all of that.
00:08:22
Speaker
I could see how I could grow their social following to not just increase their advocacy, but to really, it's like driving support for their cause because I felt it was something that women all over Nigeria could relate with, women globally could relate with. And I had a skill set to push this. So that's how I got on board first as a volunteer. Then I started to recruit other volunteers because it was something that
00:08:48
Speaker
A lot of people really, it resonated with so many people. So actually men, women started to come on board wanting to be volunteers. A lot of individual donors, coincidentally, who happened to be men as well, really wanted to support the cause. So that's how I got into it. I started by just saying, you know what, just being, because I could really be very passionate. So I just started to drive everyone. This is what we need to do. This is what we need to do. And that's how it took off in 2018.
00:09:14
Speaker
So reflecting on the several many projects that you would have done in that time, tell us about your first main one that you really felt that you had impact.
00:09:24
Speaker
I would have to say it was the one in 2021. So, I mean, I'd worked on several projects, but in 2021, the Duchess of Cornwall, Camilla, agreed to be the... She agreed to be... My eyes are like popping, right? Because that was so not the name I was expecting to hear, but it's okay. Yeah, I know.
00:09:49
Speaker
So she took on the patronage of the Mirabelle Center, making her the very first patron of the center. I think that when we discovered that she had agreed, the concern was, oh, how do we announce this and what's the communication going to be? And then I had to do some research. I realized that Camilla had done some of this work for women in the UK. She's passionate about survivors of domestic violence, gender-based violence, and
00:10:14
Speaker
I wrote the press release. We got over a hundred publications globally. I mean, the very top publications and media organizations, CNN and all of that. We did it in collaboration with, of course, her team in the UK. But I felt that that was one of the most successful campaigns because it was like a combination of all the work that we had done in terms of
00:10:34
Speaker
the visibility that had been gained over the period, the fact that we're getting,
Collaboration for Change
00:10:39
Speaker
even before she came on board as a patron of the Centre, during the 16 days of activism in 2020, the Twitter account for Prince Charles had highlighted the work that Mirabelle Centre does. I feel that
00:10:50
Speaker
some of those mentions organically you get from really reputable individuals organizations are a way to validate the work that you do. So that's what I would say. I mean, let's dig into that a bit more, because essentially what it is is that you had these big names who then drew, you know, bigger than big, I would say, they're kind of in their own, you know, in their own space, really, there's nobody else I can compare to them. It's a
00:11:15
Speaker
draw really important visibility to this topic of gender-based violence, right? So let's think about that in the broader sense of the importance of role models, influencing of social and the impact of social media because it's really social media that is making this impact as well alongside the beginning. So how reflecting on your work
00:11:35
Speaker
and thinking about the need for us to do more, especially in countries like Nigeria. I think you'd said one of the engagements, I can't remember whether it was written or video, that pre-existing biases in society influences the biases to continue in terms of things like the positions of women in society and therefore how that then relates to things like gender-based violence.
Training and Media Visibility
00:11:57
Speaker
But also when we look at media reporting on it, the language use is problematic and that also is a reflection of the society.
00:12:03
Speaker
Thinking about all of those things, the role of influences of social media, of kind of the societal biases, what are some of the things based on your experience that you would see as a way forward? What is the importance of these voices, of these big names? Such a good question actually, because from my experience with nonprofits generally, the issue really is not that the cost is not important, it's that they don't have the visibility to get it to the tables where they need to get it to. So voices like
00:12:31
Speaker
celebrities, ambassadors, help to push it to the next level. For example, when I joined the Mirabelle Center, they had ambassadors, but they were not engaging the ambassadors. What this means is that you have people who really want to advocate for you, but they don't really have the material to push. So one of the things I did was I started to push out material, which resonated with the celebrities. For example, you have people like Kate Henshaw, you have Aisha Yusufu, you have Wana Wana, you have
00:13:01
Speaker
these are people who are passionate about women. So when they push these things, it means that the policymakers are paying attention to celebrities. They are paying attention to what they say and what they think is important. So that means that the issues of gender-based violence between 2020 and 2021 became like a front burner issue, not just because of the voices and the movements that happened, but also because, you know, I think during the 2020 lockdown, things really escalated in terms of
00:13:30
Speaker
femicide in Nigeria, which was hardly talked about in terms of rape, in terms of domestic violence. So what happened was you had the strong voices of advocates, but you had the power and the weight of celebrities actually pushing that as well. So that really resonated and made government and policymakers pay attention. So it was during the 2020 lockdown that, for example, movements such as end gender-based violence now,
00:13:56
Speaker
state of emergency, gender-based violence. Now, it was basically pushing government actors into a corner and politicians, making them enforce some kind of action. And for them, it was, oh, we are declaring a state of emergency on gender-based violence. I'm not sure what action that actually, or what that achieved, but it basically meant that even if it was I service the web, they were paying attention to the conversations that were happening. And that means that
00:14:19
Speaker
Subsequently, governments at state levels, at the federal level, started to take action to actually curb it. You said there that one of the challenges is that for some organisations they don't really know how to engage the ambassadors to effectively use them for that social impact that you're talking about.
00:14:36
Speaker
So for those in the field that are listening to this call, whether media, whether comms, whether NGOs, what would be your go
Personal Experiences and Motivations
00:14:44
Speaker
-to strategy to engage in ambassadors when it relates to using media and using comms channels effectively to advocate for policy change when it comes to gender-based violence and sexual harassment? Maybe you can talk about both separately as well. I think that the way to engage people first is to understand who are you talking to? Who do you need to reach? I mean, that's the basic
00:15:05
Speaker
That's the very, very basis of communication in the first place. Who is my audience? Who am I trying to reach? I think that a lot of us forget that when we're planning strategies or doing a lot of that. So let's say you're trying to get, even if it's the state governor, to look at something that you're doing, whether it's you're supporting women who have been abused or you're building a shelter or you're trying to rescue victims, whatever it is. So you already have a course and that course is important. Next is to say
00:15:29
Speaker
Who is concerned about this? Because sometimes these people are just looking for important things to support, but they don't know how to partner with organizations as well. So it could start from inviting them, for example, to be on a Twitter space. It could start from a conversation with the founder of the NGO.
00:15:45
Speaker
and the celebrity and just having a conversation. What do you think about this? What do you think about this? One of the things we did and that I actually led during the lockdown, for example, was approach this from a different angle. I understand these are women-based issues, but we need men as allies to make progress. So one of the things the founder of the Mirabelle Center did was start a movement called Men Against Rape.
00:16:04
Speaker
So men against rape are men who say they are the ones who get offended when you say, well, men are rapists. And they say, well, not all men. So if you say not all men are rapists, what are you doing in your corner to actually change the tide? So it started with social media. Would you like to match against rape? Are you fed up with the stories about rape and girls being killed?
00:16:23
Speaker
in various parts of the country. Would you like to sign because we had like something on the wall where you sign and say, I'm saying no to rape. And we had police officers, we had last more officials in Lagos, we had celebrities, actors, you know, just men and radio hosts who just went on the streets of Lagos saying, we're tired of our sisters getting raped. We need the justice system to take action. We need the police to enforce and to arrest corporate
00:16:48
Speaker
and they matched where to the wife of the governor, to the wife of the governor saying, we want some action to be taken. I think that it starts with understanding what your course is, who is likely to be interested and who is passionate about it, and just forming these conversations organically, without necessarily, because they are organic conversations, they are about human rights, they are conversations that we have every day, but sometimes maybe one person is not paying attention. So it's just that continuous engagement to say,
00:17:13
Speaker
This is it, this is it, this is it. I could tell you, for example, that just by having these conversations and engagement with celebrities, we've been growing our social following. By the time one celebrity tweets, oh, there's this judgment and conviction of a rapist. We have 100 followers. It just tells you that there's a good blend between what the ambassador is passionate about and what the center is doing. And to expand more in terms of this topic on gender-based violence, because we also have things around human trafficking, right, and forced migration.
00:17:42
Speaker
And I think last year you worked with Clean Foundation to train media and chief security officers on communication strategies that highlight human trafficking and forced migration of young girls and women in Nigeria. So tell us about that project. What was it like and why was it so important for you to be a part of it? And also, you know, how you did it and what came out
Addressing Gaps and Future Calls
00:18:02
Speaker
of it.
00:18:02
Speaker
Okay, so I was contacted by the Klim Foundation. Someone at the Mirabelle Center had referred me to them. So something I was excited to do. And I got to meet women who are really at the grassroots
00:18:14
Speaker
rescuing girls and children who have been trafficked. And prior to that, I was aware that Nigeria had a sex trafficking, human trafficking problem, because I don't know if you recall many years ago, there was this project, it was, and the wife of the former vice president, Titia Bubakashi, had this program called Isozu, where she had highlighted the problem of sex trafficking, especially in Edo State, I schooled in Edo State secondary school. So I was well aware of the problem. So when I went into this project,
00:18:41
Speaker
I knew about the issues. I didn't know how widespread and pervasive they were, especially amongst secondary school girls. And the fact that most of the people who were trafficking them were people that they knew. So even religious leaders and clergy and people that they trust teach us. And I think that the strategy going into this particular project was saying these women do such a fantastic job
00:19:03
Speaker
And most times there are challenges, trying to reintegrate the victims back into society, helping victims deal with trauma and stigma, helping them basically start a new life. And sometimes their work is not really highlighted because there's this gap between what they do and the agenda set by the media. So when I came in there, I was basically saying, you have collaborative relationship with the media.
00:19:28
Speaker
Of course, there are guidelines and ethics about reporting about victims. But just like gender-based violence, human trafficking and sex trafficking need to be on the agenda as well. It's not getting the visibility that it needs. And that means that the government and politicians are not really paying attention to this issue. There's NAPTIP, which is doing a good job with helping to rescue and all of that. But in terms of media visibility, which is we need people to
00:19:52
Speaker
be active bystanders to pay attention to the fact that it could be their sister who is being trafficked. She could be chatting with someone online who is promising her a scholarship and it could be a trafficking thing. So, the module I presented was basically you need to work collaboratively. So let's say there's a case of a child who is missing. The media needs to highlight that. If it's not in the media,
00:20:14
Speaker
People are not going to pay attention to the fact that, oh, this is not just one case. This is something that's happening within a particular locality and something that needs to be taken care of. And you also need that to get to the tables of those who actually can change things and make policy that can help victims.
00:20:29
Speaker
And for the next three years after African-American media, we are training women journalists in Nigeria on reporting violence against women and girls in Nigeria. So it's our first kind of country-focused project, supported by the MacArthur Foundation and the Wale Soenka Center for Investigative Journalism. And really, so many issues emerge when it comes to media reporting of violence against women and girls, not just in terms of organizations that they should be working with,
00:20:55
Speaker
But also just things like language, right? So the problematic use of setting kind of language in media reporting where you're almost victim blaming. Some of the things that you said there, even the media kind of perpetrating that victim blaming. And it's really, like you said, that reflection of the pre-existing biases in our society, right? So that means that we're using certain language to refer to victims or survivors of rape, blaming people for their trafficking, you know?
00:21:22
Speaker
and what you're looking at, you know, those kinds of very insensitive narratives. So when you think about your work and your experience with media in terms of the structure of the narratives, what would you like to see happen differently when it comes to advocates for against gender-based violence, when it comes to media and considering media's kind of obligations for objectivity bias, but also raising awareness, right, so that people can be informed and therefore shape policy. So what do you see as the biggest gaps for you?
00:21:52
Speaker
like to see those gaps filled, addressed rather. Okay, thank you so much. That's such a good question and something that I've become very interested in. So I just completed research on the media framing of sexual violence in Nigeria and I had very interesting findings. I think prior to that time I'd looked at language generally and narratives by the media and one thing I would say is contemporary media in Nigeria seems to be more interested in
00:22:17
Speaker
sensationalism. So awareness is important about gender-based violence and rape, for example, but I mean, where you have a media organization publish a video of a child getting abused, it raises questions as to how did we get here and how is this even okay? So I analyzed a total of 389 newspaper
00:22:40
Speaker
reports between 2020 and 2022, the news reports from The Guardian and from Punch. And I was looking at language and first of all, I said, okay, of course you have to be, you can't be biased going into this, you just have to allow, so I allow the software do most of the work, which is just
00:22:56
Speaker
see the narratives being presented and things I saw were quite startling. So across both organizations, for example, how are victims talked about? So the things they talked about most for victims are the age of the victim, where the victim is from, in some cases, the sexual status of the victim prior to the attack. So talk about, oh, the victim was a virgin before she was raped.
00:23:17
Speaker
or the reporter asked the perpetrator because they also give perpetrators so much media space to share their views, which is alarming. So then the perpetrator says, oh, she's an ologo. And then the reporter writes in translation, a commercial sex worker. And I was just, okay, so these are the issues.
00:23:35
Speaker
So I was alarmed, and in describing perpetrators, some media reports describe perpetrators as an admirer, a random man. These are how perpetrators are described, and in some cases they would ask the perpetrator, okay, so why did you do this? And the perpetrator would say, oh, I spent ABCD money on her, or my friend spent ABCD money on her, so we felt it was within our rights. So, you know, just pushing again those narratives. And I understand that the journalist is trying to get his clicks
00:24:01
Speaker
in terms of digital media, he's trying to get his report, but it's alarming the kind of the impact that has on survivors. The fact that it's treated with such, it's so trivial, it's as if it's
00:24:13
Speaker
soft sell that no one wants to go to the media to actually be talking about cases like this. Because when I looked at it, I said, no, this is a problem. And the fact that between 2020 and 2022, most of the frames the media used were episodic frames. You are dealing with something that has become a problem, a national problem, but you're talking about it as though it were a one-off. It's happened. Yeah. So I noticed that I counted up to
00:24:38
Speaker
25 cases where children actually died from rape. But the emphasis was not on the fact that girls were being killed and raped. The emphasis was that people were dressing indecently. Girls should cover up. The emphasis was that parents should keep their children at home so that if they are
00:24:55
Speaker
They're not outside, then they cannot be raped. There's something we always say to those of us who have ever done some level of advocacy that tell us any situation where you think somebody couldn't have been raped and we'll show you instances where it happened. We've seen three month old babies get raped. We've seen 80 year old women get raped. So there's really no basis for any of these kinds of biases and conversations.
00:25:15
Speaker
And you said that the danger it presents for the survivors, right, in terms of how it makes them feel. And for future survivors, in terms of the ability to come out and to speak, but also in terms of normalizing horrible behavior by calling them, it's a random man. And like you said, where they say it was the devil, those kind of things, right?
00:25:36
Speaker
normalizing those kind of narratives. And I think that's really some of the things that we've been trying to tackle over our program. But I want to take us a bit further back in something you said earlier on, because you said that you had schooled in Edo states. But I was going to say, so to take us back to your school in an Edo state, was it apparent in your environment then, as somebody in secondary school in an Edo state, this was a big issue in the state? So I attended the federal school. And at the time, federal schools were a mixture of people from all over the country. So that means that we are not indigent of it.
00:26:04
Speaker
But one thing which was common was that a number of then schoolmates would look forward to traveling to Europe after school. Initially, I didn't get the idea. I thought, okay, maybe family is based in Europe, so you leave school and then you go for your higher education or your university in a dual state. But when it became apparent that, okay, we may not be talking about the same thing,
00:26:26
Speaker
was you would see, they talk about, oh, some young girls have built, you know, like they've come back from what their travels abroad and they now have like some form of wealth or they've established business back at home and
00:26:39
Speaker
I started to understand that the first lady then of her Dostate's, um, ethnic Canadian, you know, she was also very vocal about trying to change the system because it was embedded. It was something that was expected from, from people who were indigenous at the time. I think that it wasn't common in my school, but it was just, it had its own, you know, we knew, but it was an undercurrent. Yeah, that was exactly. We knew that, okay, this happens.
00:27:03
Speaker
And we were not quite sure as to why it happened because I think it was just like, it was like a family movement. You finish from school, then you go and then you come back and you're established, that kind of thing. So that's the way we looked at it. I'm also trying to get a handle as to how you started in this journey of advocating for this particular topic. So do you want to take us a bit back also? Because it sounds like it was a lot more than just a job and studies for you, something that you're really passionate about. So where did the passion come from or just passion for social change generally?
00:27:32
Speaker
I would have to say his passion for social change. I think I've always been dissatisfied with injustice generally. And I think that we're not really aware, as in those of us who grew up in Nigeria, we're not really aware of how inequality functions. Sometimes we just think, oh, it's the way we do things, but not really. I think that in 2018, in fact, in 2017, I was reading a report, then I was on a vacation in the UK, I was reading a report about a child who had been raped in Nigeria and I just became so angry. I remember that story.
00:28:01
Speaker
I couldn't understand why I was that angry. Then in 2018, I read about a child who wanted to go to school and was in school, was living with her auntie and the auntie's husband and son raped her and she died. I think that completely shattered me and I just needed to do something because I think that anger can propel us into different places like for me it's I need to help
00:28:22
Speaker
survivors. For me, that's the push. The more I read about, it doesn't matter. Survivors are survivors. But when I read about, it's like taking a child away from the life that they should have lived, taking them away from. It's something else. And because I've also been at events where I've seen how sexual abuse can change the life of a survivor, I've seen situations where somebody was abused, their life, body
00:28:46
Speaker
had to do up to 12 reconstructive surgeries to even be able to use the bathroom. And I've seen situations where father, uncle, brother had assaulted the same person. I've seen unheard of situations where boys cannot even speak about their abuse because society doesn't believe girls. How can boys say they were raped? So it's for me, this is it.
00:29:08
Speaker
That's another angle of this, isn't it? Is that actually abuse and gender-based violence can happen to all genders, right? And so if we think about the fact that the society kind of silences women and girls in speaking, and there's this kind of societal prescription about what men should be or what boys are. So again, it's another level of silence in everybody, really.
00:29:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's it, the silence and everybody. And when you look at the fact that when you ask some people, sometimes somebody discloses to you and then they tell you, same, thank you for your advocacy. I've been seeing your post and because of that, I'm able to speak. We walked a long time ago together where colleagues, she was like a mentee. We were quite close and she told me, I could never tell you I'd been abused when I was sick.
00:29:50
Speaker
and then she found the courage to speak out almost after 20 years. It tells you how much people have had to endure because they are afraid of a society where victim blaming is rife, where people can just, I mean some years ago we saw a popular actor say that mothers should be careful with the way they dress children because children could seduce men.
00:30:10
Speaker
So, you know, we've heard it all. It's ridiculous. It is. And so why do you think that your passion for social change emerged? Like, what's your earliest memory of this passion for social impact? My mom will say that though I was a quiet child, I've always been angry with situations that showed some level of injustice. So because I didn't even know, I would actually have called back and said, well, just a quiet child, but
00:30:38
Speaker
I think that it also comes, part of it is my fate, I must say. Being a Christian, I think that that enough injustice, that's why when people try to misrepresent God, I'm like, probably don't know him. I think that, yes, like I do so, I'm like,
00:30:53
Speaker
Because there's something about the downtrodden, the one who is vulnerable, the one who has nobody to push for them. I think that that's where it comes from, just seeing that the oppressor can just walk away, not held accountable for what they have done. And in most cases, that's it. Because the truth is that we live in a society where people feel that women are liars, they want to bring
00:31:13
Speaker
famous men down so they are going to come up with all forms of allegations about rape and assault and we need to protect men because these girls are out to destroy the reputations and the careers of successful men so that's where it comes from. It comes from wanting to basically shine the light on the fact that look
00:31:29
Speaker
abuse can happen to anybody. It can happen to anybody, men, women, females, rich, poor, whatever. So it doesn't, you have to look at it. It doesn't discriminate. At all. At all. So you have to look at it and say, look, it could happen to anyone. So I think that for me, it's saying these are the things to look out for. My advocacy has helped me also to learn that there are some telltale signs for children and things that parents can look out for to help
00:31:59
Speaker
protect their children. I mean there's no 100% protection from all of this but just to know what to do and to pay attention to the signs that could probably be telling us that something wrong is happening around here.
00:32:11
Speaker
And of course, another dimension of this, because as an organization, African women in media, both interested in women as workers of media, but also how media represents women in media content. It's also for the aspect of women in media or women journalists specifically of sexual harassment in newsroom and the kind of violence that they, gender-based violence that they experience. So have you done any work around that and what are your thoughts on kind of the real change that needs to emerge from there?
00:32:38
Speaker
I haven't done any work about that, interestingly enough, but I've always been curious because while I was doing my research about MediaFrame and I was curious to know some of the reports and narratives we see, are they from men, male journalists or are they from female journalists? Is there a difference between the way female journalists, for example, report gender-based violence and is there a difference between... Look, I think that
00:32:58
Speaker
We've heard reports about abuse in newsrooms and all sorts of things, but I've not really done anything. But they also, I know that their research, when I was reading for my research, I saw quite a number of literature on that, but I haven't done anything on that. Okay. So if you think about all the things we've talked about today, your years of experience, the kind of work that you've done in, you know, on different levels in addressing gender-based violence.
00:33:23
Speaker
So what are the gaps in all of this work that you and everybody else is doing in Nigeria that you'd like to see addressed? What are the things that's not yet been done that you'd like to do? And what are your plans to do then? Okay, so one of the things which is getting addressed but still needs
00:33:38
Speaker
a really strong hold is accountability for perpetrators which so right now we have the violence against persons act which is quite popular it has been passed in over 20 something states the UN women they've done quite an incredible job ensuring that state actors are passing this the child rights act
00:33:55
Speaker
It's also passed in a number of states, but we have some kind of challenge in some of the states in the North, for example, where religion and the act are having, there's a clash between all of that. So, for example, it was such a relief to pass that in so-called two states that was two years ago, and we're quite happy that that happened. But going forward, it's not just to have laws in place that hold perpetrators accountable.
00:34:18
Speaker
it's actually to ensure that these instances of gender-based violence are reduced and by that I mean so yes hold them accountable yes ensure that the laws are in place but we realize that when victims go to report to policemen and we have them
00:34:33
Speaker
certain number of police decks have been trained. We have the gender desk in Nigeria where victims can run reports. We realize that sometimes the police are the ones who put pressure on the survivors not to proceed further. So the survivor feels, I don't have any options here. I have to just go back into my shell. We want a situation where perpetrators, the speedy prosecution of perpetrators, that it becomes so common to see perpetrators go to jail because Lagos is doing such a good job in that regard. Lagos states,
00:35:01
Speaker
we've had the most conversations, Jigawa State is doing such a good job. But it's to do more and to show and advocacy must be carried everywhere because I think at the bottom of it all is still the bias and the things that we've come to know that, oh, men are superior to women, men can grab women, men can touch women and all of that. It needs to be said that it can happen, it's unacceptable. So another thing is that most of the laws also just prosecute rape.
00:35:29
Speaker
But we've also seen situations where victims of sexual harassment, for example, somebody who was talked at, touched, become so traumatized. In fact, more traumatized than somebody who has been raped. And it tells you that we have to focus on all levels of sexual and gender-based violence. It's also the thing about
00:35:45
Speaker
protecting those who are vulnerable. We do not have shelters in Nigeria. We always say, live to live, but where are they living to, to be quite honest? Nobody's living anywhere, because where are the facilities to help those who need to run with and who need to run for their lives? So we need shelters. One of the things that the Nana Khadija Center in Tsokoto has, they have a shelter now for men, young men, women who have
00:36:08
Speaker
been in vulnerable situations. But much more needs to be done across state levels. We need shelters to protect women from abusive husbands. We need shelters to protect women fleeing abusive situations. Sometime in 2020, private organizations reached out and I was able to... So they built an app to help report gender-based violence and rape for women who were fleeing abusive situations. And then we also had them write healing companies like Bolt, say,
00:36:33
Speaker
OK, that they could provide emergency transport for women who are running to shelters and to centers like the Mirabelle Center. So those are the kind of things that government need to do. Also, funding sexual assault referral centers. Right now, we have 32 sexual assault referral centers in the country, but not every state has. And most of them, most of the ones that have been set up are set up by private organizations, private individuals looking to help women.
00:36:54
Speaker
but there's also the challenge of funding these centers. Centers like the Mirabelle Center provide forensic and medical support which now helps victims to be able to go to court and say this is the evidence presented and they have a rape kit so this is what happened and they can present that as evidence. These centers need to be funded because individuals like you and I are there helping people to overcome trauma
00:37:18
Speaker
helping them to get a new lease of life, providing psycho-social support, medical support, and in some cases free legal support. So organizations such as sexual assault referral centers need to be funded. We have a federal ministry of women affairs and I would say that one of the challenges I noted while I was doing my research is the lack of data harmonization at the federal level.
00:37:37
Speaker
So you have a ministry that is overseeing all of this, but doesn't quite have the data to present facts as they are. We need some level of harmonization at state levels. Legal State is making progress in this regard. They have the domestic and sexual violence unit team. And that is a collaboration of all SACs. So in Legal State, for example, you have Mirabelle Center, you have Warriff, you have Sessiara, you have DSVRT. So all of them are under the DSVRT, where they collaborate, where they present data and they're able to move
00:38:05
Speaker
as one towards coping sexual and gender-based violence. We need funding for organizations like this. We need funding for organizations like yours that are advocating for women because we can't outsource governance, but people are doing such important work advocating for women and vulnerable people. They need some level of
00:38:22
Speaker
funding because your work, for example, involves media and visibility. Then there's some level of funding that is required to push that forward. So I would say that, and I also say that it's not just for government alone, also for private organizations. A lot of private organizations say
00:38:36
Speaker
Well, we are empowering women. We are doing this for women. It's time to put their money where their mouth is. Yeah. And to close off then, everything that you said, what would you like to call on the media to do to support this kind of vision and for the future?
00:38:52
Speaker
It's time for the media to really understand that gender-based violence is not a hot trend. It's something that affects the lives of real people and has ended the lives of several people that we know. So it's time for the media to report ethically, responsibly, but also to highlight the issues and the gaps. It's time for the media to stop paying lip service. Just one of the things I noted during my research was that
00:39:16
Speaker
the media seem to push the agenda that politicians are doing a lot to curb GBV. I think that it's one thing for politicians to be, we're talking about political will, but it's important for the media to present the full picture. Beyond laws, there are other things that need to be in place for Nigeria to curb gender-based violence. And I've mentioned some of them, funding of shelters, funding of sexual assault referral centers, funding advocacy groups,
00:39:39
Speaker
and NGOs and non-profits like yours pushing and you know so the media needs to highlight the gaps highlight also the issues that are some because there's some progress I mentioned that there's enough 32 sexual assault referral centers it means that someone who has been raped can say okay there's a sexual assault referral center there I can go to so these are the things that need to be highlighted by the media but most importantly ethical reporting so important
00:40:04
Speaker
Thank you.
00:40:29
Speaker
This has been a story of passion for using effective communication to change the narrative and how we advocate for survivors and victims of gender-based violence and sexual harassment. I hope, as I have, that you found this episode of SOYM to be one that's enlightening, sets us on a path to take our advocacy to the next level.
00:40:50
Speaker
If you'd like to join me on an episode of this podcast, please contact me at GMC at AfricanWomenInMedia.com. You can also visit our main website at AfricanWomenInMedia.com to find out more about our work. In the show notes, there's a list of organizations and helplines to support you if you have experienced any of the topics we have discussed today. And don't forget, join the conversation using hashtag HerMediaDiary.
00:41:16
Speaker
Her Media Diary is a product of African women in media and NGO advocating for gender equality in the industry. This episode was hosted by Dr. Yemi Siakini Babula and produced by Fathila Sadal as a part of 5 podcast series on sexual harassment in the media. All musical featured in this podcast is by Nana Kwabena. Thanks for listening. Join us again next time.