The 2025 Womanity Index reveals underfunded programs and failing awareness campaigns leaving millions of Nigerian women and girls vulnerable to gender-based violence.
The 2025 Womanity Index exposes a national crisis: underfunded programs, failing awareness campaigns, and weak legal support that leaves women and girls vulnerable in their own homes.
Despite modest improvements in budget allocations across some states, the 2025 edition finds that insufficient funding, weak implementation, and collapsing awareness programmes are leaving millions of women and girls unprotected.
The Womanity Index developed by Invictus Africa with support from partners including the BudgIT Foundation and Ford Foundation measures state-level performance across five indicators: laws and policies, access to justice, support services, awareness, as well as budget and spending.
This year’s theme, “What Has Changed?, reveals troubling reversals in public awareness, underfunded Women’s Affairs ministries, and poor budget performance.
The report also confirms that the home remains the most dangerous place for most survivors, with 76% of GBV cases occurring in domestic settings.
READ ALSO: Lagos, Rivers, Ekiti Shine in Fight Against GBV as New Report Spotlights Progress
A Crisis Hidden at Home
In her presentation, Bukky Shonibare, Executive Director of Invictus Africa explained that the 2025 Index, reveals that domestic or intimate partner violence remains Nigeria’s most common form of GBV, affecting 51% of those who report such experiences.
She said physical and sexual violence remain widespread, while psychological violence affects more than a third of survivors.
“Perhaps most alarming is that 59% of Nigerians do not know where to access legal support, even though most prefer formal justice. we now know that the home is the most dangerous place for women and girls in Nigeria, insufficient funding leaves survivors trapped in violence, when Governments Fail to Fund GBV Response, Survivors Pay the Price”
“Allocations alone do not save lives” Bukky Shonibare
Presenting the data, Shonibare warned that the decline in spending has severely weakened awareness campaigns, witness protection systems, reporting pathways, and access to justice.
She explained that “The average allocation to state Ministries of Women Affairs is just 0.6%. Some states allocated as low as 0.1%. Only Borno allocated up to 2.3%. But the real problem is spending, not allocation.”
While more states now include GBV-specific budget lines, 31 states in 2024, up from 25 the previous year, most failed to release or spend the funds.
Key Findings From the 2025 Womanity Index
Laws & Policies
- Public awareness of GBV laws continues to fall: 61% (2023) → 58% (2024) → 51% (2025).
- Few states have translated the VAPP Act into local languages or simplified formats.
Access to Legal Justice
- 68% prefer formal justice for GBV cases.
- Yet 59% don’t know where to get legal help.
Support Services
- No state has functional SARCs or shelters in all LGAs.
- Abia and Kogi have none at all.
- Only 18 states have structured reporting and referral pathways.
- Rural areas remain the least served.
Information & Awareness
- GBV awareness programming has dropped sharply:
- 52% (2023) → 49% (2024) → 41% (2025)
- Donor-funded programmes have ended without government replacement.
Budget & Spending
- Ministries of Women Affairs receive an average of 0.6% of state budgets.
- Only six states allocate 1% or more.
- Average budget performance: 39%
- GBV-specific spending across states: N120.22bn (0.66% of total budgets)
- Average amount spent per woman/girl: N365.60
Implications:
Shonibare summarised that “There is no point spending money only during the 16 Days of Activism while survivors remain unsupported the rest of the year.”
What matters is Funding
“You can allocate all you want. What matters is spending,” Shonibare said. “When money is not released, awareness drops, witness protection collapses, and survivors cannot access justice or shelters.”
She stressed the need to, “Budget more, spend more, and track spending to ensure it meets survivors where they are.”
Data-driven Report
Dapo Oyewole, Senior Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on International Cooperation, described the report as “a thoughtful, data-driven, action-oriented contribution” to one of Nigeria’s most urgent human development challenges.
“According to WHO, one in three women globally will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. Nearly three in five Nigerians 59% have either experienced GBV or know someone who has,” Oyewole said.
“Behind every statistic is a woman, a girl, a family, and a future interrupted. The Womanity Index makes the invisible visible.” He maintained
He praised the report’s granular state-by-state assessment, calling it essential because GBV response services, healthcare, police action, shelters, legal aid are delivered at state or local government levels.
“The report does not tell us just where we stand. It tells us what to do and how to do it,” he added.
He further highlighted the absence of functional Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs) across all LGAs in any Nigerian state: “Some facilities are non-existent or barely operational. This evidence tells us where to channel resources and where to strengthen coordination.”
If one message dominated the 2025 Womanity Index, it was simple: Nigeria must budget more and spend more on GBV prevention and response.
Oyewole also outlined how African legislative bodies, under his coordination, are working to harmonise laws, strengthen oversight, and support peer learning across countries.
He said Progress does not happen by accident, it requires deliberate investment in institutions, people, and partnerships that refuse to look away.
Contributing, Ekiti First Lady and gender rights advocate Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi welcomed the report but expressed concern about Nigeria’s slow progress. “We still have a long way to go in understanding what it takes to respond effectively to GBV at community and state levels,” she said.
“But I am glad that some states, Lagos, Akwa Ibom, and Ekiti are leading the way. I hope that by 2026 more states will show improvement.”
She urged policymakers, community leaders, faith leaders, and citizens to recognise that ending GBV requires collective responsibility.
Womanity Index; Indispensable
On her part, Dr. ChiChi Aniagolu-Okoye, Regional Director of the Ford Foundation, described the Womanity Index as indispensable to meaningful reform. “You cannot address a problem you cannot measure. Data tells you the nature, extent, and magnitude of GBV,” she said.
“Many policies are made without understanding the realities on the ground. The strength of the Womanity Index is its granularity—data at state and local levels.”
She emphasised that accurate data should guide Nigeria’s GBV budgeting and policy implementation, ensuring that decisions match real-world needs.
Also speaking, Dr. Osasuyi Dirisu of the Policy Innovation Centre stressed the need for sustained advocacy: “Progress does not come from wishful thinking. Evidence-based action is essential, and the Womanity Index lets us assess our impact every year.”
High GBV Rate
As Nigeria confronts high GBV rates, the Womanity Index’s message is that: progress is impossible without sustained, government-led investment.
Donor funding, once the backbone of GBV awareness and support services is declining. States that rely on NGOs for shelters or SARCs risk leaving survivors stranded when projects end.
The report however, urges federal and state governments to:
- create dedicated, well-funded GBV budget lines,
- release and track funds for accountability,
- strengthen community-level awareness,
- expand shelters and SARCs across all LGAs,
- improve witness protection,
- and build strong reporting and referral systems.
About the Author
