HumAngle's Gender Desk tracks incidents of gender-based violence. It also reports policy gaps as they affect gender issues. It focuses on GBV issues in conflict areas, displacement camps, other large-scale conflict situations, and post-conflict circumstances (e.g. experiences of widows). It also looks at the issues of sex for food and rape as a weapon of war.
Fatima ‘Teema’ Mahmud uploaded a short clip on her Telegram Status that morning; it showed a leaked intimate video involving individuals in northern Nigeria. The time was 8:13 a.m.; minutes later, she uploaded another one and another. By midday, she had uploaded dozens of similar pieces of content. By evening, there were hundreds. Some of …
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“I have mental fortitude, I am physically stronger, but I cannot undo what was done to me. Why do they do things like this and get away with it?” Aria John’s* voice cracked from the weight of her grief, the realisation that justice was not attainable, and the knowledge that her struggles were seen as …
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The harvest season is a moment of festivity in Medu, a Hausa farming community in the Gagarawa Local Government Area of Jigawa State, North West Nigeria. After residents gather crops and fill their granaries, women set aside a special day to celebrate Asure, an age-old traditional feast whose name means “enjoyment”. Ramma Hassan, a mother …
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Kolo Askumto sits on a small mat outside her makeshift shelter, a shawl draped around her shoulders for warmth. Her eyes remain fixed on the farmland ahead, not out of desire but necessity. Rows of guinea corn and beans stretch into the darkness. While she scans the fields, careful not to blink for too long, …
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Advisory: Some readers might find this story distressing as it details experiences of sexual violence. Mardiyyah Hussein* had not yet learned to roll the word ‘virgin’ on her tongue when speculations started to spread about her purity and worth after she was sexually assaulted. She was six years old, publicly beaten and shamed, while the …
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It was not passion that pushed Rahimat Ola* into the medical field. She had dreamed of becoming a writer, but her parents decided they wanted her to be a medical doctor because that was where the money was. After three years, from 2011 to 2013, of failed attempts to get into medical school, she settled …
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One of the hardest parts of living with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) for Emily Audu* is becoming emotionally tethered to a ‘favourite person’. Her world revolves around that one person; their words, presence, and approval. The fixation becomes a distraction from the internal chaos she faces daily. Even the smallest disappointment can unravel her, triggering …
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Fatima Malumfashi’s life took a dramatic turn when, at just eight years old, she underwent her first exorcism in Sokoto State, northwestern Nigeria. Before then, she had experienced unsettling symptoms—hallucinations, episodes of lost awareness, intense emotional outbursts, and a strange twitching sensation in her brain. Alarmed by these inexplicable signs, her family sought help from …
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Ten femicide cases were recorded in Cameroon in January 2025 alone, the country’s Central Bureau of Census and Population Studies, otherwise known by the French acronym BUCREP, has reported. According to the agency report, the figure “seems underestimated and remains less viable because of the lack of reporting which surrounds these crimes.” BUCREP reports that …
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Christina Ekobena* has lived in Douala in Francophone Cameroon for five years. She was forced to relocate outside her native Kumba in Anglophone Cameroon after her father brutally beat her mother to death. In the wake of the attack, enraged neighbours destroyed her family’s home in protest, and her father was sent to prison. With …
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Maryam Umar’s* father had faded into the background of her life for the past eight years. Before then, he was a man who flitted between the houses of his two wives in Kaduna, northwestern Nigeria. “My mother fell seriously sick and had to be taken back to the village for treatment, but by the time …
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At just 18, Asabe Hamisu’s* days in Tashan Kurma, a rural neighbourhood in Damaturu, Yobe State in northeastern Nigeria, are heavy with responsibilities far beyond her years. She once lived a modest life with her mother, a woman in her seventies who raised Asabe alone after separating from her father. Their bond was unshakable, and …
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