As the world commemorates International Women’s Day 2026, SOS Children’s Villages Nigeria has called for urgent reforms to protect women and girls living in conflict-affected and disaster-prone communities across the country.
This is contained in a statement by Eghosa Erhumwunse, the SOS Children’s Villages National Director, and made available to newsmen on Monday to mark the global celebration themed “Rights. Justice. Action. For All Women and Girls”.
He said since the outset of the protracted conflict, violent extremism, and the escalating climate-conflict nexus in Nigeria, women and girls had carried the disproportionate burden of instability.
According to him, “Today, Nigeria hosts over 3.4 million internally displaced persons, a figure driven by both insurgency in the North-East and rampant banditry in the North-West—with women and children constituting nearly 80 per cent of this vulnerable population.
“In these volatile settings, women face systemic exposure to Gender-Based Violence (GBV), including abduction, trafficking, and forced marriage used as a tactic of war.
“Humanitarian assessments indicate that at least one in three women in these zones experiences physical or sexual violence, often exacerbated by the lack of gender-segregated sanitation and safe access to water points. Furthermore, the collapse of local justice mechanisms and the loss of legal documentation leave displaced women in a ‘protection gap,’ where fragile systems translate directly into the systemic violation of their fundamental rights
“As the world marks International Women’s Day 2026 under the theme ‘Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls,’ we are reminded that for those in Nigeria’s most volatile regions, protection remains far below acceptable standards”, he said.
He further explained that progress towards gender equality can no longer be symbolic; it must be structural. “Rights without enforcement are merely promises on paper; justice without accessibility—especially for the displaced and rural poor—is a form of exclusion; and action without accountability leaves the most vulnerable to navigate fragile systems alone. True equality requires moving beyond rhetoric to the robust financing and policing of the frameworks meant to protect them.
“For women and girls living in humanitarian, conflict-affected, and disaster-prone communities in Nigeria, these truths are lived realities. Emergencies intensify existing inequalities”, he said.
