One of the primary concerns of the Sustainable Development Goals is to promote gender equality and empower women. The paper examines how certain forms of violence against women are portrayed in selected Nigerian video films and novels. Women and girls in Nigeria are still subjected to various culturally based forms of abuse, exploitation and discrimination, the most common of which include wife battering, rape and other forms of sexual violence during wars and conflict situations, female genital mutilation, trafficking in women, and inhuman widowhood practices. The paper discusses how Nigerian dramatists and novelists present or misrepresent gender related violence in their works. It relates the discussion to the local socio-cultural contexts in which these writings and films are set, and to the wider global debates about gender justice and the cultural specificity of human rights. The paper focuses on a representative selection of video films and novels which portray the Nigerian woman burdened in various ways with patriarchal prejudices and at times very obnoxious native laws and customs that flagrantly violate her human rights and dignity. It concludes with some comments on the adverse social consequences of violence against women, and the relevant international conventions, local legislation and other social responses that seek to redress these gender related anomalies in Nigeria. It also considers how home videos which are now widely used to dramatize these social ills can more creatively be used to promote the campaign to eliminate all forms of discrimination, abuse and violence against women and girls.
