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BAOBAB FOR WOMEN’S HUMAN RIGHTS STRONGLY CONDEMNS THE BRUTAL SEXUAL ASSAULTS ON WOMEN & GIRLS DURING THE OZORO ALUE-DO FESTIVAL IN DELTA STATE AND DEMANDS THAT THAT ALL PERPETRATORS BE BROUGHT TO BOOK


BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights is outraged and deeply alarmed by the disturbing viral videos emerging from Ozoro Kingdom in Isoko North Local Government Area of Delta State. On Thursday, 19 March 2026, during the annual Alue-Do (fertility) festival in Oruamudhu quarters, groups of men chased, stripped, molested, groped, and sexually assaulted women and girls who were out in public. Women were reportedly warned to remain indoors from 12pm, with any woman found outside becoming a target for degrading and violent attacks. We extend our deepest solidarity and compassion to every survivor of this violence. What was done to you is a crime. It is not tradition. It is not culture. It is rape, and it must be named as such.


No Culture, No Festival, No Deity Justifies Rape

BAOBAB notes with deep concern that this assault appears to have operated under the cover of a so-called traditional rite one that reportedly barred women from public spaces and designated them as targets for sexual violence if found outside. Let us be unambiguous: any tradition that weaponises women's bodies, restricts women's freedom of movement, and licenses men to assault, strip, and rape women is not a tradition worthy of protection. It is a system of organised gender-based violence, and it must be dismantled.

The fact that prior warnings were circulated on community platforms including WhatsApp groups for students of Southern Delta University  advising women not to step outside during the festival hours, reveals that this violence was anticipated, normalised, and shockingly, treated as routine. This is not a cultural misunderstanding. This is institutionalised sexual violence.


Accountability Must Be Total and Uncompromising

BAOBAB acknowledges the Delta State Police Command's arrest of 15 suspects, including a community head, and the Delta State Government's condemnation of the incident. These are necessary first steps. However, arrests alone are not justice. We have seen too many cases in Nigeria where perpetrators of sexual violence are arrested, only for cases to stall, collapse, or be settled out of court. That must not happen here.


Urgent Call to Action

BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights calls on the Federal Government of Nigeria, the Delta State Government, and all relevant authorities to:

  1. Ensure the full prosecution of all perpetrators — including not only those physically identified in viral videos, but all community leaders, organisers, and enablers who created the conditions for this mass assault. No one who facilitated, permitted, or encouraged this violence should escape accountability.

  2. Provide immediate, comprehensive support to all survivors — medical care, psychosocial counselling, and legal assistance — free of charge, and ensure that survivors are not re-traumatised by the process of seeking justice.

  3. Permanently ban any festival, rite, or cultural practice that restricts women's freedom of movement or licenses violence against women and girls, in Ozoro and across Nigeria. Culture is not static; the law is supreme.

  4. Invoke the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act (VAPP) to its fullest extent in the prosecution of this case, and ensure that the Gender-Based Violence management structures in Delta State are adequately resourced to support survivors.

  5. Protect witnesses and survivors from intimidation, reprisal, or community pressure to withdraw complaints — a common tool used to silence survivors of sexual violence in Nigeria.

  6. Conduct a nationwide audit of cultural practices that may be shielding sexual violence under the guise of tradition, and develop community-based mechanisms to challenge and transform such norms.


The Delta State Government has already described the acts as “barbaric and unacceptable” and stated that “no custom or tradition is superior to the rights of citizens.” We urge them to translate these words into concrete justice.

BAOBAB stands with the survivors and every woman in Ozoro and Nigeria who refuses to accept violence disguised as culture. We will be watching. We will be documenting. And we will continue to demand justice until every survivor receives it.

 

Signed:

BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights

 

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