Murdered in transit

On February 26, 2022, like many others in the bustling commercial city of Lagos, 22-year-old Oluwabamise Ayanwole left her home to work in search of her daily bread.

Unlike many others, after boarding a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) on her way back from the Chevron area, Ajah, Oluwabamise never got home and was discovered dead 9 days later. The case is still in court.

The BRT system, which is government-managed, is supposed to be one of the dividends that citizens can enjoy as a safer alternative to danfo buses, but as this case exemplifies, this is not the case.

The case of Oluwabamise, unfortunately, is not an outlier or limited to this one mode of transportation. Over the years, the simple act of moving from one place to another has become fraught with danger for women. Numerous reports of women being raped, physically assaulted, kidnapped, and stalked cyberly during and after their use of any of the more popular ride-hailing apps in Nigeria have been made.

Public means of transportation, arguably some of the most affordable and accessible means of transportation, including danfos, keke napep, and okada, are not left out. The incredibly harmful idea that the body parts of women hold some form of ritualistic value for people seeking desperate avenues to wealth creation means that even here, there is no safety in numbers, and women have to look over their shoulders constantly.

The lack of safety in public spaces and transport mediums significantly impacts the opportunities available to women and how empowered they feel to take advantage of these opportunities, which have far-reaching implications for their overall quality of life.

Economic independence and equality for women will remain an unattainable ideal if women do not feel safe leaving their homes for a job or business that brings in dependable income and has the potential for transformational growth.

If a woman’s chances of being raped, kidnapped, physically and sexually assaulted, or even murdered in transit, on her way to work appear significant, chances are more women may make the “choice” to explore only opportunities within a distance of their homes that they consider reasonable.

Despite these realities, sustained calls for accountability and stringent security measures within Nigeria’s transportation system, including accurate data and information management systems, a proper tracking system, and swift consequences for offenders, continue to fall on deaf ears, further exacerbating the risks women navigate daily.

Can all of these modes of transportation be unsafe for anyone? Yes. Yet, it would be naive not to acknowledge that for women, there is an added layer of insecurity that is buoyed by norms and a culture that consistently objectifies and reduces women. These norms, directly and indirectly, casualize violence against women, thereby creating an atmosphere that is, overall, unsafe for them.

Where then is safe for women? I dare say nowhere.

A report by United Nations (UN) Women and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reveals that 1 woman is killed every 10 minutes around the world, with the highest rate of intimate partner and family-related femicide recorded in Africa.

Yet, we cannot simply fold our arms and hope that this insecurity in transit systems goes away.

We must address this menace at the root by prioritising educational programs and awareness campaigns that educate the public about women’s human rights. We must prove our belief in women’s human rights by ensuring that the existing legal frameworks are implemented so that offenders get their comeuppance and survivors get justice for the crime committed against them. There are interesting emerging and even established technological solutions being used across the world that can be leveraged to improve user safety.

Ultimately, women, like everyone else, have a right to movement and safety while doing so. Going from home to work or a friend’s house or a party or to school or to anywhere, really, should not be a death sentence, and we cannot afford to live as members of a society that makes it so.

Tawakalit is the Chairperson of the European Union Youth Sounding Board in Nigeria.