Some Nigerian women have expressed fears that there will be a spike in the rate of femicide in the country if firearm possession is legalised.

According to UN Women, an agency of the United Nations dedicated to the empowerment of women and achieving gender equality across the world, femicide is defined as an intentional killing with a gender-related motivation.

It added that these killings may be driven by a number of factors, including harmful social norms, stereotyped gender roles, unequal power relations between men and women and discrimination against women and girls.

The European Institute for Gender Equality adds that femicide is the most severe manifestation of gender-based violence and can take different forms, like the torture and misogynist slaying of women, the murder of women as a result of intimate partner violence and the killing of women and girls in the name of “honour,” among others.

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Femicide is a grave issue that cuts across every country in the world. Daily, about 133 women or girls are killed by their relatives. Also, in 2022, Africa recorded the highest number of femicides by intimate partners and families, with an estimated 20,000 victims.

Nigeria has a disturbing trend of femicide. Although there are no official figures of the number of women who lose their lives to femicide yearly, deaths of female victims of domestic and sexual violence make the news occasionally.

One such killing that generated the attention of the public was that of Justina Otuene Nkang, a student at the University of Port Harcourt, who was allegedly killed by her 24-year-old boyfriend, Damian, in October last year. Damian was an undergraduate in his final year at the time.

It was reported that Damian killed Justina, dismembered parts of her body and was caught while trying to dispose of the remains of her lifeless body.

Four months before this incident, 21-year old Augusta Osedion was killed by Benjamin Nnanyereugo Best, aka Killaboi, her boyfriend at the time. After the incident, Benjamin was on the run but confessed to killing Augusta on Instagram via his personal handle.

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These stories are breeding fear in the hearts of many Nigerian women. The debate on whether firearm possession should be legalised in Nigeria has been ongoing for years. The law currently prohibits firearm possession by unlicensed persons, and anyone who has in their possession unlicensed firearms, who imports or exports firearms or ammunition other than through prescribed ports, or who manufactures, assembles or repairs firearms and ammunition unlawfully shall be liable to a minimum sentence of ten years imprisonment.

This debate was recently revisited when Ned Nwoko, a lawmaker representing Delta North senatorial district, called for a bill that would overrule this law and legalise firearm possession in Nigeria.

According to the senator, this bill is necessary to curtail the current insecurity crisis ravaging the country. He is of the opinion that if every Nigerian is allowed to own guns, they will be able to defend themselves when accosted by bandits, terrorists, kidnappers and other criminals.

Many women are worried that if this bill is passed into law and firearm possession is legalised in Nigeria, it will spike the rate of femicide in Nigeria.

Deborah Oludinmu, the founder of ‘A Pad for Her’, a women-centered initiative, told FIJ that when she first heard of the intoduction of the bill, she felt it was unsafe for women, even if people argue that women would also have the capacity to defend themselves from their attackers.

She added that Nigerian women already experience so much harassment and violence daily and legalising firearm possession is like pouring gunpowder into fire.

“As a woman, you go through so much harassment on a regular basis and you have to talk to men who, at the slightest provocation in the marketplace or on public transport, start to yell at you calmly,” she said.

“The factors that contribute to women are already there. Legalising firearm possession is like adding gunpowder to fire. I think if it is legalised, it will lead to a spike in femicide and any right-thinking person will see that.”

Abimbola Abatta, an FIJ reporter, also shares this sentiment. She said that with the rising data on violence perpetrated by men against women, it would be easy for an abusive man to silence a woman with his gun if firearm possession is legal.

“If guns are legalised today, I suspect that the ratio of men with guns will be higher than that of women. That is a disaster waiting to happen. Not even in this part of the world, where patriarchy is very much in place and men still consider women inferior. This would definitely lead to a surge in violence against women,” said Abimbola.

These concerns are not out of pocket. Research like this one by Boston University has revealed that women in states with higher rates of gun ownership are at greater risk of being killed by people they know than those in states where a smaller percentage of people own guns.

In another research conducted after studying cases of domestic violence against women in Serbia between June 2017 and June 2020, it was revealed that among the 52 cases of domestic violence against women, 19 were femicides with firearms, 19 were attempted femicides and 14 were cases of domestic violence against women with the threat of firearms.