Domestic violence: 25 percent of men suffer abuse in Nigeria — NGO

A nongovernmental organisation (NGO), the Purple Lifeline Connection, has disclosed that over 25 per cent of men suffer abuse in the hands of their partners in Nigeria.

Speaking at the weekend in Abuja, the founder of Purple Lifeline Connection, Mima Odiegwu narrated that, “in the face of the alarming rate of domestic violence, I thought it was wise and important that we draw the attention of Nigeria to how critical this trend is becoming.

“In the past, it used to be just women and children; today we have a rise also in domestic violence against men. We have a lot of patients here, I have one from Bayelsa state who his girlfriend poured hot water on him because they had a fight.

“I have one from Benin, his manhood was cut off by his girlfriend because he cheated on her, these issues are becoming terrible and alarming but we are not doing much about it,” she stated.

Mima, a marriage counsellor and mental health therapist explained that “men are shy to say their wives beat them. As a therapist, these cases come up all the time. Our children are also abused; many grow up traumatised and depressed. Now the effect is that we are raising children that are drug addicts, prostitutes who want to leave home early because they were being abused, and this is causing a high rate of crime, as a society we are paying dearly for it.

“So lifeline with Mima is our upgraded version of what we do face to face, on a daily basis we try to put out the stories of our clients who give us permission to share their stories with the world and what they are dealing with.

“About 50 per cent of women are said to have been battered by their husbands, and there is also 60 per cent ratio of children that have been battered and abused, for the men, 25 per cent have been abused,” said Mima.

She further explained that the broadcast programme “Lifeline with Mima is a brand under purple lifeline connection. Lifeline with Mima is the angle of advocacy where we work with the media to pass information across to the public and it’s like a talk show.

“So far, not less than 600-700 people have been helped minimum by the Organisation. This includes victims of domestic Violence from other countries too because I travel far and wide. We offer counselling sessions to politicians, to people in prison and to everyday people,” she added.

Mima said she working on collaborating with the Ministry of Women Affairs to further expand the scope of the Organisation’s programmes.  (Nigerian Tribune)