Femicide: Sponsors, patronisers?
Globally, nearly 89,000 women and girls were killed intentionally in 2022, the highest yearly number recorded in the past two decades. Moreover, available data suggest that while the overall number of homicides globally has begun to fall in 2022 after a spike in 2021, the number of female homicides are not decreasing.
Most killings of women and girls are gender motivated. In 2022, around 48,800 women and girls worldwide, were killed by their intimate partners or other family members. This means that, on average, more than 133 women or girls were killed every day by someone in their own family.
While most homicides worldwide are committed against men and boys (80% in 2022), women and girls are disproportionately affected by homicidal violence in the home: they represent approximately 53% of all victims of killings in the home and 66% of all victims of intimate partner killings.
Women and girls in all regions across the world, are affected by this type of gender-based violence.
With an estimated 20,000 victims in 2022, Africa has – for the first time since 2013, when UNODC began publishing regional estimates – surpassed Asia as the region with the highest number of victims in absolute terms. In 2022, Africa was also the region with the highest number of victims relative to the size of its female population (2.8 victims per 100,000 women), although the estimates are subject to uncertainty due to limited data availability.
Between 2010 and 2022, Europe witnessed an average reduction in the number of female intimate partner/family-related homicides (by 21%), albeit with differences across sub-regions and with some setbacks in Western and Southern Europe, especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Gender-related killings of women and girls, also referred to as femicide and feminicide, can broadly be defined as intentional killings committed on the grounds of gender-related factors. These can include the ideology of men’s entitlement and privilege over women, social norms regarding masculinity, and the need to assert male control or power, enforce gender roles, or prevent, discourage or punish what is considered to be unacceptable female behaviour. Femicide represents the lethal end point of a continuum of multiple, overlapping and interconnected forms of gender-based violence. Such homicides usually follow prior experiences of physical, sexual or emotional abuse.
The majority of intentional homicides of women and girls are gender-related – and estimates may understate the problem because, in roughly four out of ten cases, there is insufficient information recorded to identify gender-related motivations. Based on available evidence, the largest share of gender-related killings of women and girls are homicides perpetrated by intimate partners and other family members. While the vast majority of homicide victims recorded globally are men and boys, women and girls are, in every part of the world, disproportionately affected by homicide in the home.
Countries have taken action to address violence against women and gender-related killings in different ways, by adopting legal changes, early interventions and multi-agency efforts, as well as creating special units and implementing training in the criminal justice system.
Over the years, the killing of female members of the society by their male counterpart is on the rise. It’s not limited to intimate partner or other family members and young women in particular have fallen prey to some men around them. While these have been happening in the past, people are now beginning to get more aware. The social media space has been a medium for making all these atrocities known.
On 21st July, 2012, Nigerians woke up to the story of Cynthia Udoka Osokogu, a young woman who was stalked on Facebook, lured from her residence in Abuja to a Lagos hotel under the pretext of business, then drugged, tied up, robbed, raped, beaten and strangled to death. The perpetrators of the act were two males, Okwumi Echezona Nwabufor and Ejike Ilechukwu Olisaeloka.
Cynthia developed some friendships via the social networking site; Facebook after chatting with a newly added “friend”, Okwumi Echezona Nwabufor via her BlackBerry Messenger over the space of about four months and soon she had also befriended his cousin, Ezike Ilechukwu Olisaeloka. Even though she already had a relation in the United States who often sent her goods to sell in her retailing business, they told her they were in the same business, that they were also retailers and offered to sell her the items at cheaper prices. She believed them. These young men seemed normal and promised to host Cynthia when she came to Lagos. What Cynthia didn’t know was that Nwabufor had been stalking her for months, patiently gaining her confidence through frequent chats and postings. These and other activities that followed until her eventual killing were in the news.
Just at the start of the year, 32-year-old Timilehin Ajayi was reported to have killed his girlfriend, Salome Adaidu, and severed her head. When caught, he didn’t even deny it as he did not express any regret about the issue. The search in his house where the clean-cut dismembered remains of Salome where found was an indication that he is not new in such crime. The way he had dismembered her body and the kind of tools found in his house leaves more to be imagined. The matter is still in court.
On January, 11th 2025, there was a case involving a set of twins who stated that they abduct their victims, and dismember their bodies for sale, fortune soap, magic powder.
47-year-old Taiwo and Kehinde Yemitan, are regarded as the anchor of a kidnapping syndicate that specialises in killing their victims and dismembering their bodies for sale and for production of magic powder fortune soaps.
The twin brothers, who also worked as carpenters and herbalists, were said to have lured their latest victim, a young girl named Darasimi, to their hideout at Premier area of Abeokuta, where they killed and slaughtered her body for sale and ritual purposes.
Taiwo in an interview, said after killing their victims, they would dismember their bodies and sell them to patrons who used them for money making rituals for as low as N50,000 and as high as N100,000 depending on the part of the body, while they also use some of the body parts to make magic soap to attract good fortunes.
Earlier this month, police authorities in Akwa Ibom began a probe over the gruesome murder of makeup artist, Emrich Effanga. Effanga was allegedly killed by her boyfriend who was identified as Ndifreke.
Just last week, a suspected ritual killer identified as Alfa Abdulrahman allegedly killed a female final year student of Kwara State College of Education in Ilorin. The suspect after gruesomely killing his victim, also dismembered her body. The victim, Yetunde Lawal, was said to have met her killer on Facebook.
According to reports, he initially denied knowledge of the lady’s whereabouts. However, when the police searched his house, he confessed that the lady was in his area and had died from asthma attack after he called her to come over.
However, on further investigation by the police, the lady’s dismembered body was found hidden in a bowl, along with the equipment used to dismember her.
Disturbing evidence found in the suspect’s house suggests this may not be his first offence. A table in his room appeared to be equipped with tools used to dismember bodies.
There is a rising case of femicide and one has to be extra careful not to be a victim. The perpetrators of these dastardly acts most times look so unassuming. You would think such persons could never hurt a fly, however there is no art to find the mind’s construction on the face.
These and others are the tales we here everyday. While the twins, Taiye and Kehinde, confessed to their crime and the purpose for killing their victims, the question that plagues my mind and any right-thinking person should be- why are they doing this? Who are their sponsors or those that patronise them? What gives them the courage to take another person’s life and without remorse ‘butcher’ such persons?
