Honors, Shame And Silence: Structural Inequalities, Cultural Norms, And The Normalisation Of Violence Against Women Leading To Femicide In Nigeria
- IJLLR Journal
- May 17
- 2 min read
Netochukwu Nzewi-Okoye, LLB, BL, & LLM
Chisom O. Nzewi, BA Psychology, MA Addiction Studies, MA Counselling and Psychology
ABSTRACT
Femicide in Nigeria persists as a grave crisis despite the enactment of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act (VAPP) in 2015, widely regarded as the most comprehensive gender-based violence legislation in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper argues that femicide cannot be adequately understood through individualised frameworks that pathologise perpetrators; rather, it constitutes the cumulative outcome of intersecting structural violence, patriarchal honour systems that regulate female behaviour through shame, and the systematic silencing of women's voices across legal, cultural, and institutional domains. Drawing on Galtung's (1969) structural violence theory, Kandiyoti's (1988) patriarchal bargain framework, May et al.'s (2009) normalisation process theory, and Crenshaw's (1989) intersectionality, the paper synthesises empirical evidence from 2000 to 2026 to demonstrate how Nigerian social structures actively produce women's vulnerability to lethal violence. The analysis reveals a multifaceted crisis: legal pluralism between the Penal Code and Criminal Code creates a geographic lottery of protection; the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons has received zero government funding since 2015; and institutional failures—court delays, police corruption, absent witness protection—have become so routine that they are no longer perceived as aberrations but as normal features of the justice system. Cultural norms framing domestic violence as a private "family matter," reinforced by religious authorities and the honour-shame complex, coerce survivors into silence while insulating perpetrators from accountability. The paper concludes that addressing femicide demands simultaneous structural, cultural, and institutional interventions—full VAPP domestication, dedicated budgetary allocations, specialised courts, community engagement with traditional and religious leaders, and national data infrastructure—recognising that isolated reforms in any single domain will be neutralised by resistance in others.
Keywords: Femicide, Structural violence, Patriarchal honour systems, Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act and Normalisation of impunity.
