“What happens in this house stays in this house.”;
I must have heard that phrase a thousand times growing up. It was supposed to protect our family’s honour, keep our business private, and maintain that carefully polished image of the perfect African family. But for too many young girls across Africa, this silence has become their prison.
During my National Youth Service Corps program, I met a lady, Funmi. She was the kind of person who could light up any room she entered. Her wit was razor-sharp, and she could make everyone burst into uncontrollable laughter. But there was something else about her humour that I didn’t understand at the time. She would demolish men with her jokes, and somehow make it so funny that even the men would laugh along.
“Men aren’t useful for anything,”; she’d say with perfect comedic timing, or “The only thing they’re good for is their money.”; We all thought this was just Funmi being Funmi, the funny one who kept us entertained. However, I also noticed that whenever the men got upset, she would get defensive and abusive. She was also quick to confront men, especially when it felt like their masculinity was overriding the place of other women.
Years later, after we reconnected, she finally shared her story with me. Her uncle had molested her from the age of 8 to 12. Four whole years. The abuse only ended because her father’s job transferred him to another state, so they relocated.
“He told me he would kill me if I said anything,”; she whispered, and I barely recognised her voice. The confident woman I knew suddenly transformed into someone who still carried the fear of that little girl. “I believed him completely. Even after we moved away, I was convinced he would somehow know if I opened my mouth,”; she said. “Eva, see, men are wicked, I hate men.”;
Everything now made sense. Those jokes weren’t just humour, they were her armour. Every cutting remark about men was her way of fighting back against the helplessness she had felt as a child. The laughter she created became her shield.
This story isn’t unique.
One in three Nigerian women experiences sexual and gender-based violence. One in three could be your sister, your daughter, your best friend sitting next to you, your colleague at work, or even, your mother.
Frankly, our African cultures are rich and beautiful. The way we build communities, the respect we have for family, the bonds that connect generations, these are precious things. But somewhere along the way, in trying to preserve these values, we’ve created an environment where speaking about abuse feels like betrayal.
I’ve seen young women carry shame that was never theirs to begin with. They replay what happened over and over, wondering what they did to bring the attack on themselves, if they wore the wrong outfit, took the wrong route home, or said something that invited the attack. To make things worse, our society tells them to be strong, stay quiet, and don’t bring shame to their families. Some are even told to go for deliverance, like there are demons of abuse that need to be cast out of their lives.
The emphasis on communal harmony, which can be beautiful, becomes toxic when it silences victims. When girls try to speak up, they get hit with questions like: “Are you sure that’s what happened?”; “Why didn’t you tell us right away?”; “What were you wearing?”; “How will this look for our family?”; Even when people mean well, these questions send one clear message: your pain matters less than their peace
We all watch this play out almost every day on social media when an abuse survivor courageously shares her story. Instead of support, she is faced with character assassination and public scrutiny that is probably as traumatic as the original abuse. Rather than being empathetic, people would question everything from the survivor’s motives, timing, credibility–everything except what the man did. I’ve seen this happen too many times. Victim shaming doesn’t just silence people; it creates what psychologists call secondary trauma. The attempts to get help become another source of pain.
When survivors are met with disbelief or blame, it confirms their worst fears. It reinforces the message that they’re somehow responsible. It creates this dangerous voice in their head: “I was right to stay quiet. I shouldn’t have said anything. This is all my fault.”; Watching these experiences is like getting a masterclass in how our society treats women who dare to speak up
The mental health consequences are devastating. Survivors who get shamed for speaking up are more likely to develop complex PTSD, severe depression, anxiety disorders, and they’re at higher risk for self-harm and suicide. Many withdraw completely, not just from seeking help, but from human connection altogether.
Mental health support in African communities faces huge challenges, and therapy is seen as something for crazy people or a Western concept that doesn’t fit our traditional ways. We’re taught that faith, family and time heal everything. Although these can be great, they’re not always enough for trauma survivors.
In the typical African context, people say things like, “Why pay a stranger to listen to your problems when you have family?”; Then they go ahead to dismiss complex psychological distress with “prayer is all the therapy you need.”; These statements are devastating for someone desperately seeking help and hoping to fill a void they can’t explain. The most devastating is the stigma that runs so deep. People who know they need help worry about judgment. Will their families think they’re weak? Will their communities ostracise them? Will potential partners see them as damaged? These fears keep people suffering alone.
Unaddressed trauma doesn’t just disappear; it festers. It quietly reshapes a person from the inside out, often without them even realising it. It bleeds into every corner of their life, especially in how they form relationships, how they perceive their self-worth, and how they navigate life in general.
Sometimes, in the absence of healing, people find identity in anger. For some women, this looks like extreme feminism, the kind fueled by rage and vengeance. The kind that doesn’t just challenge patriarchy, but despises men altogether. And in many cases, this isn’t because they’re naturally full of hate, it’s because they were harmed deeply, often repeatedly, by men who were never held accountable.
There’s a story of a girl I heard some years ago. She was once one of the best in her class, but she suddenly began to struggle in school. Her grades were going down, and she wasn’t attending classes regularly. What people didn’t know was that one of her teachers was abusing and threatening her. She couldn’t tell anyone why she suddenly hated school and skipped classes. Her parents only saw a once-brilliant student who was becoming wayward. The punishments for her declining performance added another layer of trauma to an already unbearable situation.
Then there’s the case of Blessing, a lady I met during one of the tech programs I once attended. She kept ending up with men who treated her terribly. “I thought love was supposed to hurt,”; she told me once. “If someone wasn’t taking something from me, I figured they didn’t want me.”; I was dumbfounded by what I was hearing. Why would anyone think this way? I just knew that Blessing would need years of therapy for her to understand that childhood abuse had damaged her, and that the chaos and pain she kept choosing felt familiar, not healthy.
Unfortunately, when half the population is walking around with unaddressed trauma, it affects entire communities. It perpetuates cycles of violence, limits economic potential, and robs society of what these women could contribute if they had proper support.
Meanwhile, moving forward isn’t about abandoning our cultural values; it’s about expanding them to include real compassion for survivors. We need spaces where young women can speak their truth without fear. We need platforms where survivors can connect with professionals who understand both the clinical aspects of healing and the cultural context we navigate daily.
This is why we need to re-equip the digital space to be safer and more supportive for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. Right now, so much of what exists online either retraumatises, isolates, or simply overwhelms them. The internet doesn’t have to be a space where they have to second-guess themselves, dodge harmful comments, or be met with silence when they’re at their most vulnerable.
Survivors deserve a digital space that doesn’t just “raise awareness”; but actively supports healing. One that meets them with compassion, meets them where they are, and stays with them through the long, non-linear, deeply personal journey of recovery
If we can create safe spaces for survivors through technology, we’re not just helping individuals, we’re strengthening entire communities. We’re raising daughters who know their worth isn’t determined by what happens to them. We’re building societies where speaking the truth matters more than maintaining false peace.
The conversation about mental health in African communities is slowly changing, but we need to speed up that process. We need to normalise therapy, support survivors and create systems that prioritise healing over hiding. Technology gives us the tools to do this at scale while maintaining the personal touch our cultures value.
Every time a survivor finds the courage to seek help through platforms that meet her where she is, that speak her language, that understand her cultural context, they’re not just healing themselves, they’re paving the way for others, and every community that chooses support over silence creates a blueprint for change.
Our cultures taught us that it takes a village to raise a child. Maybe it’s time we recognised it also takes a village to heal one. The silence that once protected family honour has become a cage for too many of our daughters. It’s time to unlock those cages and let healing begin. Because every survivor deserves not just to survive, but to thrive. And with the right support systems, communities, and technology working together, that thriving becomes not just possible, but inevitable.
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Featured Image by Liza Summer for Pexels
