Social Voices

05/11/2025

Across Zimbabwe, women are quietly redefining what freedom means.

At small clinics and youth centres, women like Lynet Chitemere and Kudzai Mashiri are discovering how family planning can transform their lives. With guidance from health workers, they are learning what works best for their bodies, and for the first time, many can plan their families, return to school, and build careers without fear of an unplanned pregnancy.

These personal stories are part of a bigger national movement. Through the Zimbabwe National Family Planning Council, mobile health teams travel to rural communities offering counselling, contraceptives, and care. It’s an approach that puts knowledge and choice directly into people’s hands — and it’s saving lives.

Between 2010 and 2024, Zimbabwe’s maternal mortality ratio fell from 960 to 212 deaths per 100,000 live births. More than two million women now use modern contraceptives, preventing unsafe abortions and giving families a chance to thrive.

This tenth feature under our Fellowship is by Audrey Galawu, a journalist passionate about women’s health and youth empowerment across Africa.

👉🏾 Read her full report: https://socialvoices.org/family-planning-strengthens-agency-for-women-youth-in-zimbabwe/

By Audrey Galawu When 28-year-old Lynet Chitemere had her first child, she knew little about family planning. “I wasn’t aware

20/10/2025

Can the Government Lead on Gender Justice? Lagos Might Be Showing How

Ten years ago, Lagos took an unprecedented step by establishing Nigeria’s first institution dedicated solely to tackling gender-based violence.

What began as a small rapid-response unit has evolved into the Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency (DSVA), a fully fledged body providing legal aid, counselling, shelter, and rescue services for survivors.

Between August 2024 and July 2025, the agency reported handling 8,692 cases and reaching more than 6.3 million residents through awareness campaigns. These efforts earned Lagos the top “Blue” rating on the Womanity Index for two consecutive years.

Yet progress tells only part of the story. Lagos still lacks a comprehensive gender-based violence law such as the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act, and survivors in informal settlements and persons with disabilities remain on the margins of the state’s protection systems.

Drawing on the Maputo Protocol, journalist and communications specialist, Olorunnisola Abe examines whether Lagos’ institutional experiment represents a genuine shift from rhetoric to accountability, or whether its model still leaves too many behind.

This eighth feature under our Fellowship explores how Lagos is redefining what government-led gender justice can look like in Nigeria.

Read her full report: https://socialvoices.org/beyond-rhetoric-assessing-lagos-dsvas-record-on-gbv-prevention-and-response/

By Sola Abe It was five minutes to midnight on Monday, August 1, when a budding actress, Omosalewa Fafowora, took

14/10/2025

Criminalising Abortion Comes at a Human Cost.

Across 74 countries, including Nigeria, abortion remains illegal. Yet criminalisation does not end the practice; it only drives it underground.

In Nigeria, restrictive laws force women and girls to rely on informal or private health services. These shadow networks have become a double-edged sword. On one hand, innovative health startups such as Komfort Health are using technology and proven methods to provide care and reach patients discreetly. On the other, unregulated providers exploit the gap left by systemic neglect, extorting, endangering and too often harming those who seek help.

The blurred line between harm and help in Nigeria’s underground abortion care system is powerfully examined by Ayomide Ládípò̩ in this report : https://socialvoices.org/behind-the-curtains-inside-nigerias-shadow-network-of-abortion-care/

Produced under our Fellowship, with support from the Solutions Journalism Network.

By Ayọ̀mídé Ládípọ̀ The World Health Organisation recognises abortion as an essential health service to meet the global Sustainable Development

09/10/2025

𝐀 𝐡𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐬𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐍𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐚

In Nigeria, abortion is illegal and punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Coupled with entrenched stigma, this forces many women into the shadows, where access to life-saving care depends on secrecy, cost, and risk.

The toll is grim. Nigeria has the world’s highest maternal mortality rate, accounting for 29% of global maternal deaths in 2023. Unsafe abortions alone are estimated to claim about 5,000 women’s lives each year.

Komfot Health, a Nigerian health-tech startup, is offering a safer path. Since 2024, it has connected more than 1,700 women to verified providers through a WhatsApp bot that cuts wait times from a day to just 20 minutes. The platform also supports women with STI/HPV screening and contraceptive counseling, building discreet and trusted pathways to care.

This sixth feature under our Fellowship is by Ayọ̀mídé Ládípọ̀, seasoned program manager, writer, and researcher whose work amplifies the struggles and resilience of low-income communities.

Her report takes readers inside Nigeria’s shadow system of abortion care, uncovering not only the dangers but also the ingenuity and solidarity sustaining women’s health.

Read full report: https://socialvoices.org/behind-the-curtains-inside-nigerias-shadow-network-of-abortion-care/

By Ayọ̀mídé Ládípọ̀ The World Health Organisation recognises abortion as an essential health service to meet the global Sustainable Development

04/10/2025

Land is power.

In rural Nigeria, women till it, feed families from it — yet are denied the right to own it.

In Zonkwa, southern Kaduna, that pattern was quietly broken when 19 women formed an association, pooled their earnings, and bought farmlands of their own. What began as survival wages of ₦2,000 a day became acres that now represent not just economic security, but dignity and choice.

Their story is not just about farming. It is about agency, inheritance, and the long shadow of laws that promise rights but leave custom unchallenged.

This fourth feature under our Fellowship is by Yahuza Bawage, Senior Reporter at Social Voices whose work spans gender, environment, education, and health. He lays bare how women in Kaduna are reshaping land, power, and the future of rural economies.

Read more…

One Sunday afternoon, across the fields of Anguwan Mission in Zonkwa area of Kaduna State, northwestern Nigeria, Martha Saleh bent

30/09/2025

Jos carries some of Nigeria’s deepest scars. From 2001 to 2008, waves of ethno-religious violence killed thousands and turned neighbours into enemies. In the years that followed, families in Bible Faith and Rafinpa communities shut themselves off, living years in isolation.

By 2015, a slow thaw had begun. Women on both sides found ways to reconnect, first through quiet visits and then through shared routines. When COVID-19 hit, that fragile reconnection deepened into something stronger as survival demanded cooperation.

Out of that grew patrols, watch groups, and peace networks led by women. Today, Christian and Muslim women in Jos North guard the same streets where they once feared each other, holding together a peace too fragile to take for granted.

This third feature under our Fellowship is by Oge Udegbunam, a Nigerian journalist reporting on gender, peacebuilding, and human rights. Her story shows how women are redefining peace in places scarred by conflict.

By Oge Udegbunam On a regular afternoon in 2003, Blessing Emmanuel, a young widow, was at her shop on the

25/09/2025

Market women are central to Lagos’ informal economy. In Iyana Ipaja, they wake before dawn, stock their stalls, and move the goods that feed the city. Yet almost daily, they face layers of extortion and harassment disguised as levies and taxes from local authorities.

Last year, they broke the silence. They left their stalls, took to the streets, and demanded an end to illegal levies.

It was not the first time Nigerian women used protest to force power to listen—from Aba in 1929 to Abeokuta in 1947, history remembers such moments.

This second feature in our Reporting Gender Equity Fellowship is by Olayide Soaga, an award-winning journalist whose work bridges solutions reporting, gender, and health. Her story brings us face to face with women who refuse to bow, and with a system still reluctant to change.

Read full report👇🏻: https://socialvoices.org/one-protest-at-a-time-iyana-ipajas-market-women-push-back-against-extortion-injustice/

By Olayide Soaga Around the middle of last year, a group of women, numbering over ten, marched to the Alimosho

25/08/2025

What happens when journalists have sharper tools to interrogate power and spotlight real solutions? They don’t just report problems, they change the conversation.

One of the most powerful outcomes of our recent Solutions-Focused Gender Equity Reporting Training ( ) was the emergence of a charged community of storytellers, activists, and changemakers —questioning, probing, and pushing boundaries around how gender is reported.

Building on that momentum, we are excited to launch the monthly Solutions Story Lab — a training space where we explore tools, ideas, and frameworks to strengthen how solutions stories are told.

For this first edition, we are deeply honoured to welcome Bukky Shonibare — an erudite strategist, advocate, and the visionary behind the Womanity Index, a data-driven framework that measures how subnational governments are preventing and responding to gender-based violence.

She will be guiding our community of storytellers to sharpen their questions, ground their stories in evidence, and craft narratives that not only hold power accountable but also point the way toward change.

Not yet in our community? Join: socialvoices.org/join-our-community/

20/08/2025

Do you know what happens when a newborn isn’t registered for a birth certificate?

Without it, the child’s name, age, and even existence remain unacknowledged by the State.

In Tiko, a coastal town in Cameroon’s Southwest Region, thousands of children have grown up without this first document of recognition.

The result? No legal right to sit for national exams, no access to travel, and missed opportunities that could shape their future.

To change this, UNICEF Cameroon launched the My Name Campaign — raising awareness and registering as many children as possible.

Across the country’s 374 councils, the challenge was clear: restore identity, one child at a time. But in Tiko, the campaign became more than a directive. It turned personal.

By March 2025, over 3,000 children had been registered, making Tiko one of the top-performing councils in the region. How was this achieved?

In our latest report, Lucrece Armande Françoise Etonde documents the successes, the challenges, and the persistence of local actors working to secure every child’s right to an identity.

Read full report 👇🏻

As the problem spanned all ages, they visited schools, talking to teacher and students who often had no birth certificates.