Abusive childhoods, toxic homes fuel violent behaviour in most adults — DSVA boss, Vivour-Adeniyi

Executive Secretary of Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency, Titilola Vivour-Adeniyi, tells AYOOLA OLASUPO about the challenges, trauma, and persistent social factors sustaining gender-based violence in Lagos, and the agency’s focus on prevention, survivor support and access to justice

What do you remember most about the early days of the Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team as you tried to build a coordinated response to a problem that was often treated as a private family matter?

I believe the problem we have and will continue to have is that we’re dealing with mindsets, socio-cultural issues and people’s socialisation. It is very unlikely that we will be able to change people’s mindsets in a couple of years.

So, that remains one of the major issues we have dealt with and will continue to deal with in our quest to prevent and respond to sexual and gender-based violence.

There is also the culture of stigma, vilifying and blaming victims, which hinders our progress and makes it difficult for survivors to break the culture of silence and speak up because of the fear that they won’t be believed or that they will be shamed or blamed for what happened to them.

Globally, gender-based violence remains one of the most under-reported crimes because of this stigma and culture of victim-shaming. Many people remain in abusive environments and relationships but do not speak out because of the shame and blame they fear from society.

As part of the activities of the agency, are there psychotherapy sessions for some of the victims?

Yes. Part of our efforts to ensure that a holistic response and support are provided for survivors is psychosocial support, because trauma is one of the lasting impacts of gender-based violence.

While it is important to address healthcare, access to justice and rescue, we must not forget the psychological impact on survivors. That is why, at the DSVA, in addition to having a department responsible for psychosocial support and psychiatric evaluation, when necessary, we ensure survivors know the service is available at no cost.

All we need from them is their time and availability. They can benefit from up to six therapy sessions. Where survivors have children who have witnessed intimate partner violence, we also insist that the children access psychosocial support to help break the intergenerational transfer of abuse. In some cases, alleged abusers admit that they have a problem and need support.

We provide psychosocial support, including anger management, to help ease communication between the alleged abuser and their spouse, particularly where they need to co-parent.

You have encountered thousands of survivors over the years. Is there one survivor or case that you can never forget?

There are several cases. I think the interesting thing about our work is that every day when you come into the office, when you think you’ve heard it all, you hear another version or another dimension of what people are going through or have gone through.

Personally, the cases involving children are the most traumatic because children are typically abused by people who are supposed to be in a fiduciary relationship with them, the people who are supposed to protect, care for and love them.

Unfortunately, these are the people that research and statistics have shown are generally the ones who perpetrate either domestic violence, sexual violence or other forms of child abuse.

We, the responders, are traumatised by the incident; how much more the child and the family? It just emphasises the fact that as responders, we are also exposed to secondary vicarious trauma.

Can you share the relevant statistics with us?

In the past five years, we have provided services to 33,009 survivors. Out of that figure, we had about 1,171 cases of defilement; that is, having sexual activity with a child. We had about 797 cases of child abuse and physical assault; that is, physical abuse of children.

We have about 10,613 children who have witnessed violence and, as such, came under the emotional abuse category. That’s very important for us because when we engage with adult abusers, a good number of them will tell us that this is what they experienced growing up.

Their fathers or mothers were abusive towards them. They were brought up in toxic and violent environments, and that shaped who they eventually became as adults.

Now, they are in adulthood, having disagreements with their spouses, and the next thing is that they resort to violence, whether physical, verbal or emotional abuse.

If we are going to reverse this cycle, we have to be very intentional about how we relate to and handle children who have witnessed intimate partner violence, so that we can break that generational cycle and not pass it on to them as adults. That is why we do a lot in terms of how we engage these children.

Just last week, we had a support and healing group for children who have witnessed intimate partner violence. Hundreds of these children came from cases we managed in the office.

We encourage, and sometimes insist, that parents make those children available. We take advantage of the holiday period and have support and healing groups to help break the cycle of violence.

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Many survivors stay in abusive relationships for years despite the violence. From your experience, what are the factors that keep them there?

The first one — and this is in no particular order — is financial dependency. A lot of survivors are financially dependent on their abusers, and so it’s very difficult for them to leave because where do they go? What funds do they have to restart their lives or secure accommodation?

That’s one of the major reasons why survivors remain in abusive environments. There are also socio-cultural factors and religious contradictions. If a person goes to report to a church, sometimes the church will say, “God hates divorce.” As if God likes injustice.

Some of these religious teachings may encourage survivors to remain in abusive environments. We also have people staying because of the children. You hear things like, “Ah, I don’t want my child to come from a broken home,” forgetting that we do more harm than good when we bring up children in a toxic environment.

We’ve seen it over time that we are only a product of our socialisation. If you bring up a child in an environment where violence is normalised, and that child does not access psychosocial support, there is a very high likelihood that the child will grow up to think violence is normal, attract people who will be violent towards them, or become abusers themselves.

We always say this: you leave because of the children. You don’t stay because of the children. Whether you choose to accept it or not, it will have an impact, either negative or positive, on the children.

Then there’s also the lack of self-esteem. What domestic violence does is make the survivor get to the point where he or she believes they do not deserve better. They believe they deserve the beating and deserve to be abused.

At that point, it’s very difficult for them to speak up because they have conditioned themselves to accept the violence as their fault. That’s a major problem, and that is why part of what we do is ensure that, aside from all the other services, survivors are able to access psychosocial support.

There’s also this phenomenon referred to as the cycle of abuse. Some people are stuck in this cycle for decades. Basically, what the cycle of abuse talks about is that an event occurs, either a real event or a figment of imagination. Maybe one spouse posts a picture online with someone of the opposite sex, and the other person starts to believe that their spouse is unfaithful.

There might not be any evidence. The survivor may then start making excuses for the abuse, thinking, “Maybe if I don’t post the picture, he wouldn’t have hit me.” Shortly after that comes the honeymoon stage, where everything appears fine. Then we are back to tension, and some people remain stuck in that cycle for years.

Do you also record cases of violence against men as much as for women?

We have data for men. In last year’s data, we had a slight decline in terms of reporting. In 2025, out of the 7,721 survivors and cases that we received, about 950 cases were for men. Interestingly, the year before that, there were about 303 cases for men.

So, we saw quite a rise in reporting by men. We know that men experience violence. Yes, it may not be the same as women, but that doesn’t negate the fact that men are also victims and survivors of domestic and sexual violence.

It’s important for us, in terms of our advocacy, that we leave no one behind and ensure that, as we are speaking to women, we are also speaking to men. The agency’s work now goes beyond responding to individual cases to prevention, including schools, workplaces, communities and religious institutions.

As far back as 2015, when the team was established, we had commenced different programmes geared towards prevention. We started having the Rights of a Child workshop for primary school students. In 2018, we developed the King’s Club initiative, where we engage boys in promoting positive masculinity.

We’ve been doing our traditional women’s engagement, market men and women, community leaders and religious leaders for years. Then, in 2020, post-COVID, we realised that as we put effort and resources towards response, we must also be very deliberate when it comes to prevention.

What we can do as a government is ensure that these issues continue to remain on the front burner and amplify the state government’s zero-tolerance message against all forms of sexual and gender-based violence.

I’m very grateful to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State and the State House of Assembly, led by Mr Mudashiru Obasa, for ensuring that prevention takes centre stage.

In the coming weeks, we are launching, by God’s grace, the Lagos State GBV Prevention Policy, the first of its kind.

Lagos has recorded thousands of domestic and sexual violence cases in recent years. When you see those numbers, do you feel encouraged that more people are reporting, or alarmed by the scale of the problem?

I believe it’s a mixture. I’m encouraged because I know that this was not where we were 25 years ago. I’m aware of families that have broken up because their child was sexually abused and their marriage could not stand the test of time. Their marriage was affected negatively because of the abuse.

So, it is a very saddening realisation that 7,000 of that number have gone through that, because behind each statistic is a life, a destiny and a representation of a family. But I’m also encouraged by the fact that people are having more faith in the system.

People are becoming more knowledgeable about the issue and seeing themselves more as mandated reporters, especially when it involves children. Groups are calling to say, “This child is being abused. Government, please come and rescue the child.”

It is very encouraging. It means that we are now returning to the idea of “you are my brother’s keeper; I am your sister’s keeper.”