In 2001, the Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative organized a conference on gender-based violence, which formed the Legislative Advocacy Coalition on Violence Against Women (LACVAW). By the next year, the Coalition submitted a bill titled ‘Violence Against Women (Prohibition) Bill to the National Assembly without success. Four years later, they shifted to integrating other bills on gender-based violence into more holistic legislation. But only in 2008, when Yasmin was eight, did these integrations birth the VAPP bill. In its first section, the Bill featured an expanded definition of rape that included how her step-cousin had been abusing her: Section 1 (2015) read:

A person commits the offense of rape if he or she intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person with any other part of his or her body or anything else; (b) the other person does not consent to the penetration; or (c) the consent is obtained by force or means of threat or intimidation…

Yasmin had been penetrated using stones and sticks. Growing up in a conservative Muslim family, she did not have the words to report what was happening to her. She was too afraid to give any hints. However, when her mother found out, she would learn being discovered was a greater shame. ‘What she (my mother) did was to beat me in public. I was beaten 50 times and slapped 15 times,’ she said, ‘And I can remember the exact number because after every slap, every beating, I prayed to God for help, but then no help came until I stopped asking.’

While Yasmin continued to endure abuse from her step-cousin and his friends, LACVAW kept pushing the Bill through several interventions. There were media campaigns and 16 days of Activism in November 2009 under the theme ‘Commit, Act, Demand! We Can End Violence Against Women.’ But it was only until 14 March, 2013, that the House of Representatives finally passed the Bill containing 48 sections, 26 of which outline acts under six kinds of violence: sexual, physical, psychological, emotional, financial, and political. Each section prescribes punishments for committing, attempting, inciting, or assisting offenders. By this time, Yasmin’s pool of abusers had expanded beyond family members to include the gateman at her secondary school.

Following one of Nigeria’s most intense electoral periods, President Jonathan conceded defeat and handed over power to Muhammadu Buhari. Following pressure from activists, President Jonathan signed the VAPP Bill four days before he left office on 25 May 2015. 

It was in this same year that Yasmin was starting to unlearn shame and gathered the courage to report an abuser for the first time. In a shuttle heading to the Usman Danfodio University, a man seated beside her had unzipped himself and forced her hand into his trousers. This crime is covered under Indecent Exposure in the VAPP Act. Section 27 (2015) read: ‘A person who intentionally exposes his or her genital organs, or a substantial part thereof, and induces another to either massage or touch with the intention of deriving sexual pleasure from such acts commits an offense under this clause.’

Yasmin had one witness, the shuttle conductor, but he had laughed while he watched her freeze in her seat, unable to understand why this had happened to her again. When the shuttle stopped, Yasmin went to the security office of the school to report but was advised to let it go. She said:

It took so much for me because I was 15. It was not like I really even had an idea of how to do these things correctly. So, I went with so much hopes that, okay, maybe I could do this. But then he just told me that, no, that women shouldn’t report things like this.

Even though the act had been passed, individual states needed to domesticate it and possibly engage in sensitization. But while LACVAW had publicly appreciated former Senator Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State for his help in getting the VAPP bill passed, it would take six more years of activism before the act would be domesticated in Sokoto. When the definitive wave of activism began, Yasmin was invested. 

For this, the #ArewaMeToo movement was instrumental. In 2019, two of its leaders, Hassana Maina and Sadiya Taheer, organized a standstill protest across nine northern states to induce state legislators to domesticate the act. To discredit the movement, rumours that it was an LGBTQ+ rally began to spread. The Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar, banned the protest, the commissioner of police withdrew support, and various state actors in Sokoto decried the movement despite multiple clarifications of its purpose. Taheer said she heard one of the officers saying: ‘Look at her telling women to voice out when they’ve been raped, how can we allow for that? If it’s our sister, how can we marry her off when she’s voiced out that she’s been raped?’  

Despite her activism online, Yasmin was barred by her parents from going to the State House of Assembly, where the protest would be held on 03 December 2019. Taheer, who made it there with a small team of seven, was beaten and detained by the police. After this experience, Yasmin decided that she would no longer keep silent. Silence was a tool and an enabler.  

The next year, when a shopkeeper in the market groped her and solicited sex, she recorded the entire incident and went to the police with evidence. Unfortunately, she was turned away for the same reasons as before. According to her, the police said: ‘Why will you report this? You will drag your family’s name through the mud.’ 

In 2021, the VAPP act was finally domesticated in Sokoto State, providing women like Yasmin with multiple layers of protection against abusers. Now, it’s been one month since she got her protection order against Ahmed, and she has discovered the move to repeal the act. She said: 

Somehow, the men in my community have stopped making advances toward me. It’s just literally quietened around me. Men actually no longer spread rumours or lies or whatever they think about me, and it’s more of let’s just stay away from this person. I don’t want any issue with the court. The VAPP Act is something very dear to me. So I think it’s very horrible that a lawmaker could think of a repeal.

What will change if the VAPP act, which made Yasmin feel safer, is repealed and replaced?