Sex for survival: Terrorism, poverty and sexual violence in north-eastern Nigeria

ABSTRACT

This study advances the discourse on factors behind conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). Focusing on terrorism-affected north-eastern Nigeria, it argues that terrorism creates poor economic conditions that compel women and girls to engage in transactional sex in exchange for money, food, shelter, protection, and marriage, despite the risks of socio-legal persecutions. This further intensifies the vulnerability of women and girls to sexual violation by security force personnel and aid workers who may exploit their positions of relative power. Furthermore, the lax government response to the rise of CRSV, partly arising from this trade in sex, has contributed to its growth. Thus, this study builds on the debate regarding the motivations behind CRSV. It advances the sex economy framework building on Elisabeth Wood’s discussion of the ‘toleration’ of sexual violence. This pattern of CRSV also has implications for the state’s capacity to access intelligence for the purpose of curbing terrorism.

KEYWORDS:

• Boko Haram
• conflict-related sexual violence Islamic State of West African Province
• gender-based violence
• terrorism
• transactional sex
• food-for-sex

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Studies Association (ISA) 2021 Annual Convention. Specifically, the Panel: ‘Violent Extremism' and ‘Countering Violent Extremism’: Critically Exploring Intersections of Gender and Race in International Security. We thank Jennifer Philippa Eggert, who chaired the Panel and the discussant Sherine El Taraboulsi-McCarthy for the meaningful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 For this article, we define sexual violence as ‘[r]ape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilisation, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity’ (International Criminal Court cited in Koos 2017: 2).

2 P. Scully, ‘Expanding the Concept of Gender-Based Violence in Peace-Building and Development,’ Journal of Peacebuilding & Development 5, no. 3 (2010): 21–33; J. Leatherman, Sexual Violence and Armed Conflict (Polity, 2011).

3 B. Diken and C. Laustsen, ‘Becoming Abject: Rape as a Weapon of War,’ Body & Society 11, no. 1 (2005): 111–28; C. Enloe, Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarising Women's Lives (University of California Press, 2000); E. Wood, ‘Rape as a Practice of War: Toward a Typology of Political Violence,’ Politics & Society 46, no. 4 (2018): 513–37.

4 In this article, we used economy of sex, transactional sex, or sex trade interchangeably to refer to the situation or a system of covert and overt demand and supply of sex between actors; where sex is offered as a reward for access to resources (including money).

5 There are some notable exceptions: B. Beber et al., ‘Peacekeeping, Compliance with International Norms, and Transactional Sex in Monrovia, Liberia,’ International Organisation 71, Winter (2017): 1–30 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818316000242; S. Karim and K. Beardsley, ‘Explaining Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in Peacekeeping Missions: The Role of Female Peacekeepers and Gender Equality in Contributing Countries,’ Journal of Peace Research 53, no. 1 (2016): 100–115; K. Jennings and V. Nikolić-Ristanovićm ‘UN peacekeeping economies and local sex industries: Connections and implications.’ (Microcon research Working Paper 17 2009), 18.

6 By security agents were are referring to military personnel, officer and men of the Nigerian Police and National Security and Civil Defence Corps. It also include members of the state sanctioned vigilante groups known as the Civilian Joint Task Force.

7 Boko Haram comprises three different factions and affiliates: the Islamic State of West African Province (ISWAP). For the sake of this article and simplicity's sake, we use Boko Haram to refer to all of the three factions except for instances when reference is made to a particular faction.

8 E. T. Njoku, ‘The Ligaments of Counter-terrorism Regime: Sexual Violence and the Vicarious Traumatisation of Female Non-Governmental Organisation Workers: Evidence from Nigeria,’ Small Wars & Insurgencies 30, no. 6-7 (2019): 1233–63; Amnesty International, ‘Nigeria: Starving Women Raped by Soldiers and Militia Who Claim to Be Rescuing Them.’ (2018). https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/05/nigeria-starving-women-raped-by-soldiers-and-militia-who-claim-to-be-rescuing-them/; Human Rights Watch Nigeria: Officials Abusing Displaced Women, Girls Displaced by Boko Haram and Victims Twice Over. (2016) https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/10/31/nigeria-officials-abusing-displaced-women-girls.

9 Njoku, ‘The Ligaments of Counter-terrorism Regime’; E. T. Njoku, ‘State-Oriented Service-Delivery Partnership with Civil Society Organizations in Nigeria in the Context of Counter-Terrorism,’ Development Policy Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12524.

10 Wood, ‘Rape as a Practice of War.’

11 Wood, ‘Rape as a Practice of War.’

12 Placeholder reference for works from this ‘existing literature’, please.

13 S. E. Davies and J. True, ‘Reframing Conflict-Related Sexual and Gender-Based Violence: Bringing Gender Analysis Back,’ Security Dialogue 46, no. 6 (2015): 495–512.

14 J. Westendorf and L. Searle, ‘Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in Peace Operations: Trends, Policy Responses and Future Directions,’ International Affairs 93, no. 2 (2017): 365–87; S. Aroussi, ‘Women, Peace and Security and the Democratic Republic of the Congo: Time to Rethink Sexual Violence as Gender-Based Harm?’ Politics and Gender 10, no. 3 (2016): 1–28; Scully, ‘Gender-Based Violence’; R. Sigsworth and N. Valji, ‘Continuities of Violence against Women and the Limitations of Transitional Justice: The Case of South Africa,’ Gender in Transitional Justice (2012): 115–35.

15 N. Henry, ‘Theorizing Wartime Rape: Deconstructing Gender, Sexuality, and Violence,’ Gender & Society 30, no. 1 (2016): 44–56; Aroussi, ‘Women, Peace and Security’; Davies and True, ‘Reframing Conflict-Related Sexual and Gender-Based Violence’; R. Manjoo and C. McRaith, ‘Gender-Based Violence and Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Areas,’ Cornell International Law Journal 44 (2011): 11–22.

16 S. Meger, ‘Rape of the Congo: Understanding Sexual Violence in the Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo,’ Journal of Contemporary African Studies 28, no. 2 (2010): 119–35.

17 J. Sheila, ‘Double Jeopardy: Women, the US Military and the War in Iraq,’ Women's Studies International Forum 30, no. 1 (2007): 16–25.

18 M. Baaz and M. Stern, Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War? Perceptions, Prescriptions, Problems in the Congo and Beyond (Zed Books, 2013).

19 Meger, ‘Rape of the Congo.’

20 Baaz and Stern, ‘Weapon of War?’

21 R. Seifert, ‘War and Rape: A Preliminary Analysis,’ The Criminology of War (1994): 307–26.

22 C. Bunch, et al., ‘International Networking for Women’s Human Rights,’ in Global Citizen Action, edited by Michael Edwards and John Gaventa, 373–84. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2001; S. Sivakumaran, ‘Sexual Violence against Men in Armed Conflict,’ European Journal of International Law 18, no. 2 (2007): 253–76; Wood, ‘Rape as a Practice of War.’ In acknowledgement of rape being a weapon of war, the UN security council adopted resolution 1820, which led to the creation of the office of the UN Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict.

23 M. Olujic, ‘Embodiment of Terror: Gendered Violence in Peacetime and Wartime in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina,’ Medical Anthropology Quarterly 12, no. 1 (1998): 31–50; M. Turshen, The Political Economy of Rape: An Analysis of Systematic Rape and Sexual Abuse of Women during Armed Conflict in Africa, na, 2001.

24 Seifert, ‘War and Rape.’

25 E. Wood, ‘Variation in Sexual Violence during War,’ Politics and Society 34, no. 3 (2006): 307–42.

26 The other part of her typology looked at combatants’ motives for committing rape, which she identified as: ‘Private preference for rape’, ‘Unit social dynamics: conformity, coercion’, and ‘Compliance to command’. See Wood, 2018: 522.

27 Wood, ‘Rape as a Practice of War.’

28 This particular response was noticed Salvadoran security agencies. For instance, Amelia Hoover-Green highlights how security agencies use punishment as a response to sexual violence in El-Salvador. For more see A. Hoover Green, ‘The Commander’s Dilemma: Creating and Controlling Armed Group Violence,’ Journal of Peace Research 53, no. 5 (2016): 619–32.

29 Wood, ‘Rape as a Practice of War.’

30 Baaz and Stern, ‘Weapon of War?’

31 Wood, ‘Rape as a Practice of War.’

32 Wood, ‘Rape as a Practice of War.’

33 E. Wood, ‘Armed Groups and Sexual Violence: When Is Wartime Rape Rare?’ Politics & Society 37, no. 1 (2009): 131–161; S. Meger, ‘The Fetishisation of Sexual Violence in International Security,’ International Studies Quarterly 60, no. 1 (2016): 149–59; S. Meger, Rape Loot Pillage: The Political Economy of Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict (Oxford University Press, 2016).

34 The Guardian, ‘UN Report: South Sudan Allowed Soldiers to Rape Civilians in Civil War’ (2016). https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/mar/11/south-sudans-soldiers-allowed-to-rape-civilians-civil-war-says-un-government-torture#:~:text=The%20South%20Sudanese%20government%20has,according%20to%20a%20UN%20report.

35 Interview with a security and development NGO executive, August 14, 2020.

36 R. Baumeister and K. Vohs, ‘Sexual Economics: Sex as Female Resource for Social Exchange in Heterosexual Interactions,’ Personality and Social Psychology Review 8, no. 4 (2004): 339–63.

37 Baumeister and Vohs, ‘Sexual Economics.’

38 R. C. Berg, A. J. Schmidt, and P. Weatherburn, ‘The EMIS Network Transactional Sex: Supply and Demand Among European Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM) in the Context of Local Laws,’ International Journal of Sexual Health 27, no. 3, (2015): 286–302; Katie B. Biello et al., ‘Transactional Sex and the Challenges to Safer Sexual Behaviors: A Study among Male Sex Workers in Chennai, India,’ AIDS Care 29, no. 2 (2016): 231–8; E. A. Bamgboye et al., ‘Transactional Sex between Men and Its Implications on HIV and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Nigeria’ Journal of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/1810346

39 Baumeister and Vohs, ‘Sexual Economics.’

40 B. Beber et al., ‘Peacekeeping, Compliance with International Norms, and Transactional Sex in Monrovia, Liberia,’ International Organization 71, Winter (2017): 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818316000242; S. Karim and K. Beardsley, ‘Explaining Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in Peacekeeping Missions: The Role of Female Peacekeepers and Gender Equality in Contributing Countries,’ Journal of Peace Research 53, no. 1 (2016): 100–115; K. Jennings and V. Nikolić-Ristanović, ‘UN Peacekeeping Economies and Local Sex Industries’ Micro Level Analysis of Violent Conflict (MACROCON) Working paper 17 (Brighton: MICROCON, 2009); K. Jenning, ‘Service Sex and Security: Gendered Peacekeeping Economies in Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo,’ Security Dialogue 45 no. 4 (2014 ): 313–30.

41 Westendorf and Searle, ‘Sexual Exploitation.’

42 Westendorf and Searle, ‘Sexual exploitation.’

43 S. Spencer, ‘Making Peace: Preventing and Responding to Sexual Exploitation by United Nations Peacekeepers,’ Journal of Public and International Affairs 16, no. 1 (2005): 167–81.

44 Westendorf and Searle, ‘Sexual Exploitation.’

45 Spencer, ‘Making Peace.’

46 Amnesty International, Starving Women Raped; Human Rights Watch, Abusing Displaced Women.

47 H. K. Kah, ‘Boko Haram Is Losing, but so Is Food Production: Conflict and Food Insecurity in Nigeria and Cameroon,’ Africa Development 42, no. 3 (2017): 177–9.

48 Interview with a security and development NGO executive, August 14, 2020.

49 United Nations Development Programme, ‘North-East Nigeria Livelihoods and Economic Recovery Assessment’ (2016), https://www.humanitarianresponse.info/en/operations/nigeria/assessment/livelihoods-and-economic-recovery-assessment-north-east-nigeria.

50 United Nations Development Programme, ‘Business Case Assessment for Accelerating Development Investments in Famine Response and Prevention. Case Study: North-East Nigeria’ (2017), https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/crisis-prevention-and-recovery/accelerating-development-investments-in-famine-response-and-prev.html.

51 United Nations Development Programme, ‘Business Case Assessment for Accelerating Development.

52 International Crisis Group, ‘Instruments of Pain (IV).’

53 International Crisis Group, ‘Instruments of Pain (IV): The Food Crisis in North-East, Nigeria,’ 2017, https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/west-africa/nigeria/b126-instruments-pain-iv-food-crisis-north-east-nigeria.

54 International Crisis Group, ‘Instruments of Pain (IV).’

55 Interview with a security and development NGO executive, August 14, 2020.

56 International Crisis Group, ‘Instruments of Pain (IV).’

57 International Crisis Group, ‘Instruments of Pain (IV).’

58 Saheed B. Owonikoko , Jamila B. A. Suleiman, Wusa Kondani Maibaka & Nafisa Tasiu (2021): 'What a man can do, a woman can do better': women farmers, livelihood and drug abuse in Adamawa State, northeastern Nigeria, Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse, DOI:10.1080/15332640.2021.1871694

59 Westendorf and Searle, ‘Sexual Exploitation.’

60 Interview with a security and development NGO executive, August 14, 2020.

61 Interview with military personnel in the Nigerian Army, October 11, 2018.

62 S. B. Fakunmoju et al., ‘Attribution of Blame to Victim and Attitudes toward Partner Violence: Cross-National Comparisons across the United States, South Africa, and Nigeria,’ International Journal of Gender and Women’s Studies 3, no. 2 (2015): 76–92; Njoku, ‘The Ligaments of Counter-terrorism Regime.’

63 Interview with an executive of an NGO focused on rights advocacy and developments issues, April 27, 2018.

64 Interview with military personnel in the Nigerian Army, October 11, 2018.

65 Interview with an executive of an NGO focused on gender health issues, October 11, 2018.

66 Interview with an executive of an NGO focused on rights advocacy and developments issues, April 27, 2018.

67 Interview with a humanitarian and security civil society organisation worker investigating conditions of IDPs, May 7, 2018.

68 Interview with military personnel in the Nigerian Army, October 11, 2018.

69 Amnesty International, Starving Women Raped.

70 Interview with military personnel in the Nigerian Army, May 30, 2018. Interview with an Officer of the National Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), May 13, 2018. Interview a senior Army officer in the Nigerian Military, May 31, 2018.

71 United Nation High Commission for Refugees ‘A Call for Action: SGBV in the Lake Chad Basin Crisis’ Regional Protection Working Group, Geneva, UNHCR, 2017 https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/58965.

72 Henry, Theorizing Wartime Rape; Aroussi, ‘Women, Peace and Security.’

73 Interview with a security and development NGO executive in the north-east, August 14, 2020.

74 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, ‘Assessment of Trafficking Risks in Internally Displaced Persons Camps in North-East Nigeria’ (2020) https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/75273.

75 Wood, ‘Rape as a Practice of War,’ 3–4.

76 Interview with an NGO worker with an international humanitarian NGO, May 30, 2018.

77 Author’s interview with a security and development NGO executive, August 14, 2020.

78 E. T. Njoku, ‘“Laws for Sale”: The Domestication of Counter-terrorism Legislation and Its Impact in Nigeria,’ in The Palgrave Handbook of Global Counterterrorism Policy, ed. S. N. Romaniuk, F. Grice, D. Irrera, and S. Webb (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

79 Njoku, ‘The Ligaments of Counter-terrorism Regime’; E. T. Njoku, ‘State-Oriented Service-Delivery Partnership.’

80 E. T. Njoku, ‘Politics of Conviviality? State–Civil Society Relations within the Context of Counter-terrorism in Nigeria,’ VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organisations (2017): 1–23.

81 ‘Boko Haram Crisis: Nigeria Fury over US Arms Refusal,’ British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), November 11, 2014, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30006066.

82 ‘Give Us Weapon to Fight Terrorism, Lai Mohammed Begs World Powers,’ Vanguard (Nigeria), August 13, 2020, https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/08/give-us-weapon-to-fight-terrorism-lai-mohammed-begs-world-powers.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Emeka Thaddues Njoku

Emeka Thaddues Njoku is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Birmingham where he is the 2021/2023 Newton International Fellow of The British Academy and The Royal Society. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. Njoku’s research focuses on the intersection of civil society organisations and security governance, particularly post-9/11 international and state-level counter-terrorism policies and practices. He was a 2019/20 Post-doctoral Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies/African Humanities Program, New York, USA and held predoctoral fellowships in the Social Science Research Council’s Next Generation Social Science in Africa programme. Njoku’s work has appeared in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Development in Practice, Development Policy Review, African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review and a forthcoming edited book by Manchester University Press.

Joshua Akintayo

Joshua Akintayo is a PhD student at the Brussels School of International Studies (BSIS) – the University of Kent, United Kingdom. Joshua's PhD research focuses on examining the complex nature of government engagement with Muslim communities and non-state actors in the context of the deradicalisation programme in north-eastern Nigeria. His current field placement is state-community relations within the context of counter-terrorism. He is interested in deradicalisation programmes and practices of states countering violent extremism, and state-community relations. His works have appeared in the African Journal of Terrorism and a book chapter published in the Routledge Companion to Global Cyber-Security Strategy.