Gender-based violence (GBV) remains a pervasive human rights, public health and development challenge in Nigeria, disproportionately affecting women and girls across different ages, communities and socioeconomic backgrounds. Beyond the immediate physical, emotional and psychological consequences, GBV restricts individuals’ ability to access education, pursue livelihoods, obtain healthcare, exercise their rights, and participate fully in social and economic life. In doing so, it reinforces unequal power relations and perpetuates wider cycles of vulnerability, exclusion, and poverty. .
The scale and persistence of GBV point to a significant prevention and protection challenge. The 2024 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) found that 23% of women who had ever been married or had an intimate partner had experienced physical, sexual, or emotional violence by their current or most recent partner, while 21% of women aged 15–49 had experienced physical or sexual violence at some point in their lives. Of women who had experienced physical or sexual violence, 58% had never sought help or told anyone about their experience. These findings underscore not only the prevalence of violence, but also the barriers that prevent women and girls from accessing protection, support, and justice..
GBV takes multiple forms, including physical, sexual and psychological violence, intimate partner violence, child and forced marriage, female genital mutilation and other harmful practices. However, these forms of violence do not occur in isolation. They are often enabled by harmful gender norms, unequal power relations, social acceptance of violence, economic and social vulnerability, limited awareness of rights and available services, and weak or inaccessible accountability and protection mechanisms.. Effective prevention therefore requires moving beyond awareness-raising and responding to incidents after they occur, toward strengthening the institutions, relationships, norms, and community practices that can prevent violence before it happens.
It is within this context that the Development Alternatives and Resource Center (DARC) established the Gender Safety and Violence Prevention Program (GSVPP) as a strategic platform for advancing proactive, community-based GBV prevention. The programme seeks to strengthen the capacity of individuals, families, community institutions, and influential actors to recognize risk, challenge harmful norms, promote gender-equitable relationships, strengthen protective environments, and act early to prevent violence. It also seeks to strengthen pathways for safe and appropriate first-line support and referral where violence occurs.
For DARC, GBV prevention is fundamentally a gender justice and social transformation agenda. The GSVPP therefore combines prevention, safeguarding, gender equality, community engagement, institutional strengthening, and social accountability to address both the immediate risks and the underlying conditions that enable GBV. By working with locally trusted institutions – including faith and community structures – the programme aims to build stronger prevention systems, promote safer environments, strengthen the agency and voice of women and girls, and contribute to communities where dignity, equality, safety, and freedom from violence are upheld as shared social values..