Kaduna — As armed banditry intensifies across northwest Nigeria, women and girls are paying the highest price, facing sexual violence, forced marriage, and the collapse of social structures that once protected them, according to a comprehensive new investigation by The New Humanitarian.
The report reveals how the security crisis gripping Zamfaria, Sokoto, Katsina, and Kaduna states has created a humanitarian emergency that disproportionately affects women, yet remains largely invisible in national conversations focused on military operations and casualty statistics.
In communities under siege from armed groups, traditional protection mechanisms have disintegrated. Men who once defended villages are dead, displaced, or living in fear. Women are left vulnerable to bandits who use sexual violence systematically as a weapon of terror and control. Those kidnapped face forced marriages to fighters, sexual slavery, or are held for ransom that impoverished families cannot pay.
The economic burden falls heavily on women. With husbands killed or farms abandoned due to violence, women become sole providers for their families while lacking access to land, capital, or security. Many resort to dangerous coping mechanisms: traveling to markets in bandit-controlled areas, negotiating directly with armed groups, or sending children to work rather than school.
The healthcare consequences are severe. Women cannot access maternal health services when clinics close or roads become too dangerous to travel. Sexual violence survivors face stigma and lack medical or psychological support. Malnutrition rates among pregnant women and nursing mothers have soared as food insecurity deepens.
Education for girls has collapsed in the worst-affected areas. Families keep daughters home fearing kidnapping, while schools that remain open lack female students. This reverses decades of progress on girls' education in northern Nigeria and condemns another generation to limited opportunities.
"We are trapped," one woman told researchers.
