What we work on
The practices that harm women, youth and children — and the beliefs that keep them alive.
Across Africa, a range of practices continue to violate the rights, health and dignity of women and girls — defended as culture, religion or tradition. The Maputo Protocol, which Nigeria has ratified, calls for their end. C-RAWYC works to that end through public education, video-led debate, research and advocacy.
The practices we address
Documented by the United Nations, the World Health Organization and the African Union as harmful practices. Several are present in Nigeria; all affect the wider continent.
Female genital mutilation (FGM)
The partial or total removal of external female genitalia for non-medical reasons. It carries lifelong physical and psychological harm and no health benefit. Nigeria has one of the highest absolute numbers of affected women in the world.
Child, early and forced marriage
Marrying girls before adulthood, often to much older men, ends their education, endangers their health through early pregnancy, and removes their power over their own lives.
Breast ironing (breast flattening)
Pressing or massaging a girl's developing breasts to delay their growth, in the belief it protects her from male attention. It is painful, damaging, and places responsibility for men's behaviour onto a child's body.
Widowhood and wife-inheritance rites
Practices that treat a widow as property to be passed to a male relative, or that subject her to degrading mourning rituals, confinement or dispossession of her home and inheritance.
Virginity testing
Physically inspecting girls and women to "prove" virginity. It has no scientific basis, violates dignity and privacy, and polices female bodies while ignoring the conduct of men entirely.
Son preference and the neglect of girls
Valuing boys over girls in food, healthcare, schooling and inheritance — a quieter harm that shapes a girl's whole life, and in its most extreme forms costs it.
Ritual servitude and shrine slavery
Handing girls to shrines or priests to atone for a family's alleged offence, where they may be held as servants or subjected to sexual abuse. Known in parts of West Africa, including as trokosi.
Accusations of witchcraft against children and widows
Branding a child or an older woman a witch, often leading to abandonment, violence or death. It targets the powerless and is frequently driven by money or inheritance disputes.
Gender-based and sexual violence (GBV / SGBV)
Domestic violence, rape, sexual assault, intimate-partner homicide and the sexual exploitation of those with the least power. Nearly one in five women in Africa reported partner violence in the past year alone.
Harassment, coercion and the abuse of authority
Sexual harassment at work and school, and the trading of grades, jobs or protection for sex. This is the ground the Respect Challenge covers most directly.
How we work on them
Naming a practice is not the same as ending it. We work to change the beliefs that sustain these practices, in the places where those beliefs actually live.
Video-led public debate
Short films that put a practice and the belief behind it up for open discussion, in plain language, for a Nigerian audience — on our site and on social media.
Public education
The Respect Challenge and other tools that teach people to recognise harm, question inherited beliefs, and examine their own conduct.
Research and evidence
Anonymous data on which beliefs still hold and where, so our advocacy is grounded in what people actually think rather than what we assume.
Advocacy and partnership
Working with communities, institutions and other organisations toward the standards set out in the Maputo Protocol and Nigerian law.