GBV shows up in more forms than most people expect, across both private domestic spaces and public platforms. The module groups these into six categories.
1. Physical Violence
Physical violence is any non-consensual use of physical force, objects, or weapons that causes or threatens bodily harm. This includes beating, hitting, kicking, pushing, biting, slapping, choking, or attacking with weapons or heavy household objects. What distinguishes physical violence from an ordinary argument is the intentional use of force or the threat of force to inflict harm and establish control.
2. Sexual Violence
Sexual violence covers any non-consensual sexual act, attempt to obtain one, or unwanted sexual conduct directed at a person’s sexuality without free consent. It breaks down into three related forms.
Sexual exploitation is the abuse of power, trust, or vulnerability for sexual purposes, including profiting from it financially or materially. A landlord demanding sexual favors from a tenant in exchange for a rent reduction is an example.
Sexual abuse is actual or threatened sexual intrusion by force, threat, or coercive conditions, such as a relative touching a child inappropriately while relying on their position of trust in the family.
Sexual harassment is unwelcome sexual advances, requests for favors, or verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, such as a supervisor repeatedly asking a junior colleague out despite her discomfort and explicit refusal.
3. Psychological and Emotional Violence
Psychological violence is non-physical harm designed to inflict emotional distress, erode self-esteem, isolate a person, or maintain control through fear. It includes intimidation, severe verbal abuse, blackmail, defamation, constant monitoring, threats of abandonment, and enforced isolation from friends and family.
Consider this case from Abuja: a man routinely checks his partner Kemi’s phone messages, then confronts her with a threat: “If you set foot in your family’s house, I will take the children and you will never see them again.” What signals psychological violence here isn’t just the surveillance of her personal communications; it’s that surveillance combined with the coercive threat of separating her from her children.
4. Economic and Financial Violence
Economic violence causes material harm by denying someone access to financial resources, controlling their earnings, or blocking their economic independence without consent. This includes preventing a partner from seeking employment, withholding money needed for food or medical care, seizing earned wages, or sabotaging the communication tools someone needs to maintain social and financial independence.
5. Harmful Traditional Practices
Harmful traditional practices are socio-cultural customs that inflict physical, mental, or economic harm, disproportionately targeting women, girls, widows, and other vulnerable groups under the guise of tradition or ritual. These practices vary widely in form but share the same underlying pattern: harm justified by custom.
| Practice | What It Involves |
|---|---|
| Child marriage | Marrying children before legal adulthood, severely limiting their health, schooling, and life outcomes |
| Female genital mutilation (FGM) | Non-medical partial or total removal of external female genitalia, causing severe physical and psychological trauma |
| Widowhood rites | Forcing widows through degrading, dehumanizing, or dangerous rituals following a spouse’s death |
| Widow inheritance | Forcing a widow to marry her deceased husband’s male relative without her full consent |
| Denial of property or inheritance rights | Preventing widows or daughters from owning or inheriting family land and assets because of their gender |
| Forced marriage | Compelling anyone into marriage without their free, full, and informed consent |
| Accusations of witchcraft | Targeting vulnerable individuals, often widows, elderly women, or disabled people, leading to severe abuse and ostracization |
| Harmful initiation rites | Ceremonies or passage rituals that involve forced physical or sexual abuse |
| Menstrual stigma and isolation | Restricting women and girls from social participation, hygiene facilities, or education during menstruation |
| Breast ironing | Pressing or flattening adolescent girls’ breasts to delay physical development and deter male attention |
6. Online, Digital, or Technology-Facilitated GBV
As technology has expanded, so has the space in which gender-based control can operate. Technology-facilitated GBV covers a wide range of digital harms, and recognizing them by name is often the first step toward responding to them.
| Digital Harm | What It Involves |
|---|---|
| Cyberbullying | Repeated online harassment, insults, or intimidation directed at a person |
| Cyberstalking | Persistent online tracking, monitoring, and unwanted contact across digital platforms |
| Online sexual harassment | Unwelcome sexual messages, comments, or conduct delivered through digital channels |
| Image-based abuse | Non-consensual sharing, distribution, or threat of sharing intimate images or videos |
| Doxxing | Publishing private personal data, such as an address, phone number, or workplace, online with malicious intent |
| Impersonation | Stealing or spoofing someone’s digital identity to damage their reputation or social trust |
| Online threats | Direct digital intimidation or explicit threats of physical violence, sexual assault, or death |
| Deepfake abuse | Using AI tools to create non-consensual explicit media or targeted imagery |
| Financial digital abuse | Unauthorized control or surveillance of someone’s banking apps, digital wallets, or online accounts |
| Online trolling | Deliberate digital harassment, provocation, and public humiliation targeted at an individual |
| Cyberflashing | Sending unsolicited sexual images or explicit media through Wi-Fi, AirDrop, or messaging services |
| Digital surveillance | Installing stalkerware or spy software to secretly track someone’s location and activity |