Assessing Violence Against Women in the 2023 General Elections

With support from the Government of Canada and the European Union, the UN Women Government of Canada and the European Union hosted a post-election conférence to assess politically-motivated gender-based violence during the 2023 General Elections on Monday, 15 May 2023. The conference brought together agencies and civil society organisations that participated in observing the 2023 General Elections. This included WILPF Nigeria, FIDA, ElectHER, Women in Politics Forum, Zamani Foundation, Nigerian Women Trust Fund (NWTF), KIMPACT Development Initiative, FOMWAN, National Democratic Institute, the Westminster Foundation, and the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs.

Discussions and presentations at the conference aimed at reviewing the challenges in reporting violence against women in elections, the arising factors that will influence data collection, actions to take after violence and intimidation reports, prospective interventions, as well as a joint summary report for advocacy and follow-up, and practical recommendation to make the issue of gender-based violence more visible.

Electoral gender-based violence includes physical, emotional, sexual, and intellectual violence that impedes the full participation of women in every aspect of elections – as voters, party members, aspirants, candidates, party officials, electoral officials, security agents, observers, monitors, and Press.

In her remarks, UN Women's Country Representative to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Beatrice Eyong, reiterated that women in Nigeria and other parts of Africa had been killed during elections as voters and candidates, with some quitting their political aspirations after receiving death threats.

“Women candidates have faced various forms of targeted, gender-based violence, and the lack of data on violence against women in politics negatively affects evidence-based advocacy for influencing change in laws and policies and for establishing protection systems for women in politics”, said Ms Beatrice.

Facilitator of the conference, Prof. Joy Ezeilo, Founder of Women Aid Collective (WACOL), highlighted the discrimination, exclusion and dismission of women’s participation in the 2023 elections despite the high amount of representation and participation by women in the 2023 electoral process.

HE. Mrs Samuela Isopi, Head of the European Union delegation to Nigeria and the ECOWAS represented by Esme Stuart spoke on the marginalisation and underrepresentation of women in Nigeria’s governance systems, stating that “the full and equitable participation of women in public life is essential to building and sustaining strong, vibrant democracies. There is strong evidence that as more women are elected to office, there is an increase in policymaking that emphasizes quality of life and reflects the priorities of families, women, and marginalised groups.”

Jennifer Bina Ifedi, victim and survivor of electoral gender-based violence from the 2023 presidential elections, was present at the conference and gave her testimonial of the incident. She highlighted the absence of security agents at the polling unit as a precursor for the assault. Jennifer’s resolve to return to vote after being attacked and injured has become an inspirational story around Nigeria.

Recommendations include the need for gender-responsive security measures to curb violence against women in elections; swift prosecution of perpetrators of violence against women in elections regardless of status; deploying of unified data tool for gender-responsive assessment of elections; advocacy and sensitization to reduce party-influenced electoral violence.