SPECIAL REPORT: A day in the Life of an SGBV Responder in Nigeria

Would you engage in an underpaid, emotionally-draining, stressful and time-consuming 24/7 job? This is the life of a first responder to cases of sexual and gender-based violence, Priye Diri, who stands up for survivors and takes on the battle to break the cycle of abuse on Nigerian women and girls.

8:30 AM to 11 AM… IN COURT

“Titi, I am on my period and in severe pain, but I have to be here, in court,” Priye Diri, a first responder to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), whispered to PREMIUM TIMES as we entered the gates of the Federal High Court, Gudu, in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, to meet her client.

Battling menstrual cramps, Ms Diri wore a plastic smile on her face because she knew her client, a widow, needed her to get justice for her eight-year-old daughter, who was allegedly raped by a suspected cultist. The survivor’s mother had reported the matter to the Dorothy Njemanze Foundation, an organisation that rescues and offers 24-hour GBV response to victims, where Ms Diri works, as Programme Manager.

It was 9:04 a.m. on the 14 February as we walked into an ongoing hearing in a half-filled courtroom. The lawyer from the Nigerian police assigned to the survivor’s case was not present, but a substitute arrived just in time for the start of the hearing.

“My lord, the matter today is slated for arraignment, and I am on the side of the prosecution,” the lawyer said as she presented the case to the presiding judge, who immediately picked a hole in the drafted case file.

“The rape of an eight-year-old without her consent? Who drafted this? So what if she had given her consent, you would have written with her consent? ” the judge inquired with an astonished look and requested a redraft.

The 27-year-old suspect pleaded not guilty. He did not have a lawyer, and just as the judge was about to make a request to get him one, a lawyer in attendance for another hearing volunteered to handle his case.

The hearing was adjourned until 8 March for a sitting on the bail application, but the accused was remanded in police custody.

Outside the courtroom, Ms Diri asked the substitute lawyer why an outdated law, the Penal Code of 1960, was used to charge the accused instead of a recent Gender-Based Violence Protection law like the Child’s Right Act and Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act, an issue she later explained was one of the shortcomings in the country’s legal system that negatively affects adequate prosecution of such cases.

She called the original lawyer to ask for a redraft, but he refused. He said the law already drafted was sufficient. She then decided to get a replacement so as not to jeopardise the case because her client was terrified for her life and the lives of her children after learning that the accused might be granted bail.

According to her, the use of the penal code gives “a soft landing to the perpetrator, such that if he is given a sentence, he can appeal the ruling, whereas the Child Rights Act does not give him the right to appeal.”

11 AM TO 4:30 PM AT THE OFFICE

Constant tiredness, Little pay, Thankless job

Ms Diri left the courthouse with her client. Back at the office, she went through the events of the day, looking for ways to prepare the woman and her child as witnesses for the upcoming trial if the bail application is denied by the judge.

While doing this, she chatted with PREMIUM TIMES about how she had dreamed about the case before it got to her.

“I had a dream on Sunday afternoon that my office had a case of a cultist who raped a child, and we successfully sent him to jail, and everyone was happy. In the office, some cultists came with guns and machetes, asking about my whereabouts. They came with a truck and started packing our tables, laptops, etc. into it. They kept saying, ‘Shebi na una.’ (It is you, right?)

“Then they showed me a picture of a man and asked if I knew him. I said no. The guy in the picture walked in and told me I was lying, then he shot me on my left shoulder. They carried Dorothy (her boss) in their car and drove off,” she said, recounting the dream.

The following day at work, on Monday, she received a message from her boss instructing her to call a number immediately. It was a woman who begged to be rescued with her children as their lives were threatened by friends of a suspected cultist who had allegedly raped her daughter.

“I was shocked about the coincidence,” she said. You would think this was enough reason for Ms Diri to stay away from the case, but she did not despite her boss’ instruction to do so.

That was the second time she dreamt of a case before it was reported. The first time, she dreamed that a man who went to work in a place raped someone there and the next day a case was reported that a man who had gone to work in an Internally Displaced Persons camp raped a girl there.

She believes her involvement in the current case was to provide guidance because she spotted the outdated law used to charge the accused.

But Ada Ikeako, a behavioural physician, told PREMIUM TIMES that there is no scientific validity to the experience Ms Diri had.

“It only operates in the realm of faith and spirituality. She could be dreaming about traumatic cases, but not specifically to the point that A and B is going to have a trauma on so and so date or place,” Mrs Ikeako explained.

Ms Diri’s dedication to her work is admirable, but the job takes a toll on her mental health.

“I am constantly exhausted. I usually have panic attacks. I sometimes experience extreme sadness and insomnia. To help myself, I do a lot of journaling to help my mental health. I cry a lot; maybe in a week, I can cry like three times. Before I start working every day, I say positive affirmations to hype myself. I also read my devotionals because I am heavy on God. I work out as well,” she said.

These signs were present before starting the job but worsened over time and came with panic attacks, she noted.

Ms Diri had sought expert care to deal with her mental health issues but stopped because it was expensive. Then, she paid as much as N45,000 per session out of pocket six times and she sometimes sought financial support to complete her fees.

Not until 2021 did the organisation she works for secure a grant that allowed access to an in-house therapist for the survivors in their shelter and her colleagues.

Although a good day for her is when no GBV cases are reported, she feels bad that it is possible there are unreported cases because survivors do not know how to reach out for help or they are dying in silence.

She described her job, where she earns little or next to nothing, as thankless. The organisation has not secured any grant since 2022, and they rely on public donations and their personal resources to rescue and help survivors.

You would wonder why one would want to remain in an unpaid and time-consuming job, but Ms Diri’s first experience volunteering to rescue GBV survivors after being sexually assaulted in 2017, ignited her passion for becoming a first responder.

She was trained by organisations like UNICEF and UNFPA on how to handle SGBV cases and taught the ethics of being a first responder – exercise constraint even when emotions are heightened – because GBV cases are sensitive -, avoid judging survivors or making them feel unsafe, and don’t accept gifts from them, among others.

“Being a responder is caregiving. You get to experience secondary trauma and witness a survivor’s breakdown. We do a lot of hand-holding to guide survivors to do the right thing. But that’s what makes the work different—that it is people-centred, so we have to care for them even before ourselves,” she said.

Secondary trauma, according to the National Child Traumatic Network, is the emotional duress that results when an individual hears about the firsthand trauma experiences of another.

First responders are also vulnerable to developing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder because they constantly hear about trauma from the survivors, Mrs Ikeako, the behavioural physician, told PREMIUM TIMES.

She highlighted the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder to include intrusive symptoms (flashbacks, nightmares, elevated heart rate and blood pressure); avoidant behaviour of people, places and events; external reminders of what happened, cognition and mood (negative beliefs, rage guilt, anxiety and shame; memory loss, difficulty in enjoying the things you used to enjoy and lack of the capacity to enjoy positive emotions and isolation from loved ones) and physical reactivity (feeling on edge, easily frightened/ jumpy and sleep changes).

To manage this, she advised that first responders have “an outlet—debriefing where they can talk about their feelings and thoughts so they can process experiences and screened appropriately for not just post-traumatic stress but anxiety and depression as well.”

My interview with Ms Diri was shortened because she needed to share the proceedings from the court case as well as other active cases they were treating, with her boss.

Joys and difficulties of the job, disrupted ambition

As she was speaking with her boss, a small figure appeared in the doorway. It was a two-year-old boy, the son of the Executive Director, whom the latter adopted after his father was arrested for robbery and his mother abandoned him. The boy’s face lit up when he saw Ms Diri, and he ran over to her, gave her a peck, and said, “I like your hair.”

She could not help but smile back.

“Thank you,” she replied.

Despite the daily challenges she faces every day as an SGBV responder, she said moments like that make it all worthwhile.

But there are factors that threaten such joyous moments in rescuing GBV survivors and fighting for their justice. Ms Diri indicated that “dealing with security agencies can be tasking and challenging because, a lot of the time, they think they know it all, but their knowledge is not in tandem with current realities.

“Sometimes the survivors, when they don’t get what they expect, turn on us and see us as the enemy. This is why we have our consent form, which contains the following services: security, health, psychosocial, safe-house, legal, and livelihood. They consent to the type of help they want from us so that, in the future, they don’t say otherwise.”

She cited an instance when a survivor was brought to them, and the family claimed she was pregnant, but the test results were negative. Upon further check, it was discovered that she had Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which in most cases makes women infertile. The family later accused the organisation of conducting an abortion for the survivor even though they had consented to health services.

“Another thing that frustrates me is the legal system. I have worked on over 2,000 GBV cases, and sometimes during the investigation, law enforcement officers force survivors to settle. They also frustrate survivors so much that they lose interest in the case because they are continuously delayed, and having an open case is like having your life paused because you are waiting for it to end so you can move on to other things,” she explained.

To buttress this, she cited a case her organisation won in 2020 that had been in court for over seven years, as it was moved several times, first from the police to the Ministry of Justice in the Federal Capital Territory, and when they were to get a judgment, the judge retired and a new judge was assigned. They had to start again.

She believes that special courts for GBV should be created to ensure that justice is served quickly and efficiently.

Ms Diri also spoke on how the challenges faced in getting justice for GBV survivors affect her as well.

“I am constantly afraid. I read deeper meanings into little actions. I am more sensitive because I have seen and witnessed a lot of cases. I am a GBV responder, and my life is often at risk. I get phone threats because my number is out there,” she said.

Rounding off her interview with me, she shared her struggles to find balance between her work as a GBV responder and her passion for filmmaking.

“I am not doing as much as I want to do as a filmmaker. It is challenging because this work (SGBV response) is time-consuming but I am hoping to produce a documentary by March,” she said. She has now started the project and is almost near completion.

4:30 PM TO 6:40 PM VISIT TO HOSPITAL AND SHELTER

We left the office for the National Hospital Abuja to see another client, 19-year-old Naomi (fictitious name used to protect the survivor’s identity), an orphan with no siblings.

“Someone found her at Jabi Mall and brought her to us for shelter. She was raped and bruised. After further health checks, they found she was anaemic and had tuberculosis. She has been in the hospital since January 5,” Ms Diri explained to PREMIUM TIMES as we climbed the stairs leading to the isolation ward.

At the time, over N700,000 had been spent on the survivor’s treatment, with an outstanding N400,000.

Bent double in pain, her right hand firmly against the wall, to steady her movement, Naomi shuffled through the ward’s corridor and stopped a few metres from Ms Diri, who asked about her health.

A few minutes into the conversation, the girl said: “Thank you so much, God bless you. Help me greet Dorothy and tell her Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Exiting the ward for the GBV survivors’ shelter, Ms Diri told PREMIUM TIMES that the organisation would write to the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs for funds to settle the girl’s hospital bills and get her an apartment after she is discharged.

As we entered the premises of the shelter, a four-bedroom duplex, five children hovered around the responder to greet her.

The shelter was opened in 2020 following increased GBV cases during the COVID-19 lockdown in Nigeria. It has been a safety net for over 200 women, girls, and children.

This shelter is part of 21 recognised public and privately run GBV shelters in Nigeria, according to a 2022 publication by Invictus Africa in partnership with OSIWA and some Nigerian government agencies.

You can access the details of GBV shelters in Abuja here

“We pay N2.3 million as rent, and the landlord wants to increase the rent, but it also needs urgent renovation. We have applied for funds to renovate the place and sustain the welfare of the occupants,” she said as she took PREMIUM TIMES on a tour around the building.

It is some minutes to 7 p.m. as the tour ends and Ms Diri prepared to leave for the office to have a final meeting with her boss before heading home to continue grant applications while tending to the needs of survivors and waiting for the next emergency call for rescue, even in the dead of night.

She resumes tomorrow and every other day to continue the fight against gendered violence against Nigerian women and girls. For her, this is a way to give back to society.

This report was supported by the Africa Women Journalism Project (AWJP) in partnership with the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and with the sponsorship of the Ford Foundation.