Oluwaseun Ayodeji Osowobi: A Survivor’s Story
Oluwaseun Ayodeji Osowobi is the Executive Director of Stand to End Rape Initiative, an NGO that provides support services to survivors of sexual violence. She also leads policy advocacy and behavioural change communication towards issues of sexual and gender-based violence in Nigeria. Upon her return to Nigeria recently from the UK post-Commonwealth event, nothing prepared her for the brutish way her next few weeks would turn. As a responsible citizen, she self-isolated and last month she tested positive to COVID-19. She had to inform those she came in close contact with to get tested. Already lined up in her kitty were interviews, a contract worth millions, and a fantastic consultancy job to boot. She lost them all! Just this week, she was declared free of the virus after gruelling days of pain, uncertainty and fear of the unknown. Although she lost golden opportunities due to her health circumstances, Osowobi has boldly declared herself a ‘Survivayo’, a coinage of her name and survivor and we couldn’t agree more. The reason is simple- life has thrown her so many lemons and she has taken it in her strides, emerging victorious each time. In an earlier interview with MARY NNAH, Osowobi, now in her late twenties and also a rape survivor, who defied stigma, revealed that her mission for the past five years has been to break the culture of silence on sexual violence as well as build capacity of institutions to prevent and respond to cases of sexual and gender-based violence
You were named by Time Magazine in 2019 as one of the 100 people shaping the future. How did that make you feel?
At first I was surprised as to how people who are not within my continent were actually following my work and perceived the impact of what we were doing and want to celebrate that. I was also excited because this means that we can put our work in more global space. And that people can get to know more about Stand to End Rape (STER) Initiative and what we do and we can receive support. When I got the news, it was a good thing but it was also a responsibility because it meant that now that the world is aware of my work. I have to do much more, I can’t let people down because a lot of people are now looking up to me. I don’t really know what I did to deserve the recognition. I’m just doing what I love to do and doing my life’s purpose. I am just ensuring that any woman who experiences violence does not have to keep quiet about it and that she can receive help. I am also ensuring that my own children and even the generation of now don’t have to experience it. So, I can’t say that this is one thig that I have done to deserve it. I just know that for almost six years now, I have just been in my corner doing my work with all the people working at STER Initiative. We are just contributing to a better society. So, if the world feels we should be celebrated for that work, yes, we are grateful.
I felt more excited for the fact that someone such as Barrack Obama to actually tweet that he is proud to see me on that list, is amazing, I can’t really explain how I feel. It means that the world is watching what we do. And besides, I am an Obama Foundation leader. What that means is that Barack Obama has a foundation that recognises the potentials of young Africans who are creating change, building businesses that are impacting lives, innovating, and just young people doing great stuff. I am one of the 200 people in Africa who were chosen in 2018 as an Obama leader.
What informed your decision to go into advocacy on issues of sexual and gender based violence?
I had sort of experienced sexual violence myself and I read a lot of stories online about violations that happened but I couldn’t see any information about how the survivors in those cases got through the whole experience. The name of the abuser was always protected. So, it was like the society was protecting the abusers and shaming the abused. So, I started writing about what sexual violence is and how our inaction and actions have actually contributed to it. I realised that it was not just enough to be writing, so I started providing direct support to survivors, engaging in community outreaches, campaigns and speaking to people on how they can use their platforms to create awareness on such violence and then help us change the gender norms that contribute to violence against women and girls. That’s how I started.
I used to run a blog at a time I was living in New York and because there was time difference, I felt that even if I tried to tweet at my own time, Nigerians might be in traffic or sleeping at that time, so I decided to be writing a lot of contents on my blog. I will wake early in the morning or stay up at midnight and publish and the go to bed and when I wake up, I will see a lot of comments and people saying, “This and this happened to me”, and all that. Or, “Can you tell me more about this situation? And that was how I was pushing my contents, using my blog and a lot of twitter engagements. I was tweeting a lot with my own personal account at a time, using the hashtag #StandtoEndRape and a lot of people were just retweeting and asking questions because it was very new at that time and we still had a lot of culture of silence on the social media then. I was using my content to break that silence and helping people to unlearn and learn new things. And I eventually established my NGO in 2014. So, the interest started from my rape experience during my NYSC. Now, what exactly is rape or sexual violence, as you call it? A lot of women can’t really draw the line and so they don’t even bother to pursue a case of rape even when they are victims We have the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act, though it is only applicable in a few states in Nigeria. That Act kind of expands on the definition of the criminal and penal code.
A person is said to raped if he or she penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person with any part of his or her body or anything else without the consent of the other person. Before the criminal and penal code, we can only prove rape through the vigina but we cannot prove it through the anus, which meant that men cannot be raped by that definition but this kind of expands what rape is. The fact that someone violates your body sexually without your consent is a rape; even if they used an object in your mouth, vagina or anywhere against your consent, is rape. There is something called “Rape and Beg” where people be like, “please, please, let me just touch the tip” and you are like “No, no” only for the person to go ahead and use his sexual organ or anything to touch the tip of the vagina; that’s sexually violating your body; that’s rape! But because our culture sort of have normalised the behaviours, so some things do not count as rape. You are in a relationship with someone or married to someone and the person says no to any sexual contact and you feel that because we are married or that I am dating you, I have the right. No! Every human being has autonomy, whether in a marriage or a single people. That you are married does not take out your human right. So, a lot of women do not even understand what rape is in the context of even within a marriage or even within a relationship. It is just basically anyone at all, whether woman or man taking your body without your consent. In which case, a married woman can be raped by her husband.
To what extent have you taken your work?
We have done a couple of events outside Nigeria because we are trying to get the global space to look into violence against women and girls but again, our target audience have always been Nigerians and so a lot of our works have been in Nigeria in terms of policy advocacy. We were part of the youth group that was pushing for the passage of the VAPP Act. It was a bill at a time but now that it has been passed into law, it is an act. We have also been leading advocacy on the sexual harassment in the tertiary educational prohibition bill; we have also supported other civil society organisations to push for the gender and equal opportunity bill, though that has been rejected a number of times but we are constantly working with different stakeholders to push for policies that better the lives of Nigerians because when a policy is in place, whether you are man or woman, you get to benefit from the outcome. So, we work across the country even though we are physically based only in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt.
What has been the impact of your work so far?
The impact has been great. If you look at six years ago, you could hardly find people on social media come up and say I have been raped and mothers reporting the cases of raping of their children. Everyone wanted to keep it quiet and protect their family names. But today you have mothers reaching out and fathers reporting cases of rape. We are breaking the culture of silence on sexual violence and that is a big shift from six years ago when we started our work. Now, people can openly say it anywhere that they have been raped. We are moving gradually to a place where we can now have mothers holding their own sons accountable for rape. So, the impact for us is one survivor who is able to come forward and say I have been raped and they can get help. They don’t have to die in silence.
What has been the most challenging thing you face trying to achieve your aims?
A lot cultural beliefs, a lot of people still try to shut cases down, a lot of bias by the police and lack of effective mechanisms. Our criminal justice is still very weak; working with police has been the bitter-sweet experience; sweet because we have had great police officers who use their capacity to further protect the rights of survivors. Bitter because we have some police officers who have seen it as a business opportunity to negotiate for out of court settlements and to ask Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) for money for mobilisation, money to seek the Directorate of the Public Prosecution advice; like every step of the process they request for money.
Another challenge is that it is a legal frame work and as you know the onus to prove rape is on the victim. And a case against rape is a case against the state. The state has to stand in court on behalf of the survivor and that is a bit problematic because survivors should be able to choose who represents them in court but instead, the state gives them a prosecutor and if he shows in court or does not, nobody is able to hold them accountable. But if the survivors or CSOs were able to get lawyers to represent clients in court directly, that would really help the system. And even where they have lawyers, if cases are taking up to two to three years for us to get justice, of course every survivor will get tired.