The Catholic Church in Nigeria has launched an initiative to train at least 1,000 seminarians to identify, prevent and respond to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), equipping future priests to protect vulnerable people and promote safer communities.
The programme has already reached more than 260 seminarians at St. Thomas Aquinas Major Seminary in Makurdi, Benue State, through a three-day training and capacity-building programme organised as part of efforts to strengthen the Church’s response to abuse.
The initiative seeks to prepare future priests to recognise different forms of violence, support survivors and raise awareness among families and communities through their pastoral responsibilities.
In an interview with ACI Africa on Wednesday, October 21, the secretary general of the Catholic Secretariat of Nigeria (CSN), Fr. Michael Banjo, said the prevalence of sexual and other forms of violence in the country required deliberate action to protect human dignity, particularly among vulnerable populations.
“Seminarians must receive formation that prepares them not only for priestly ministry but also for the responsibility of protecting people from abuse, educating the faithful and promoting a culture in which violence is neither tolerated nor concealed,” Banjo said.
He described the protection of human dignity as an essential expression of the Christian faith, stressing that every person deserves respect and protection from abuse. “The disturbing prevalence of sexual and other forms of violence in Nigeria calls us to make the Christian message of love concrete through the protection of human dignity. Every person is created in the image and likeness of God, and every act of abuse violates that dignity,” he added.
The training forms part of a capacity-building project designed to strengthen awareness and prevention of SGBV among Catholic Church stakeholders across Nigeria. Sr. Cor Jesu Maria Ijeoma Eke, the Episcopal Secretary of the Family and Human Life unit of the CSN, said the programme was intended to equip seminarians with the knowledge they would need before assuming pastoral responsibilities.
According to her, training future priests would help extend awareness of SGBV beyond existing Church groups to families and communities. “These are the future Priests, future Bishops, the future shepherds that we will have in the Church. We decided to take this training down to them so that if we can get them to understand what sexual and gender-based violence is all about, its manifestations, its forms and everything surrounding it, it will be a better way of spreading this knowledge and seeing how we can work towards the prevention of this ill,” Eke said.
She explained that priests occupy an important position in community life through their homilies, pastoral visits, apostolic work and interactions with Church organisations. These engagements, she said, could provide opportunities to educate the faithful, challenge harmful practices and encourage the prevention of abuse.
Eke added that the project initially targeted at least 1,000 seminarians in selected major seminaries, with the possibility of reaching more participants as the programme progresses.
The Executive Director of the Lux Terra Leadership Foundation, Fr. George Omaku Ehusani, said his organisation introduced the initiative to the Catholic Church in Nigeria to address SGBV and harmful practices affecting vulnerable people.
Ehusani identified domestic violence, discriminatory treatment of women and harmful cultural practices as some of the issues the programme seeks to address. He also highlighted the mistreatment of widows who are deprived of their late husbands’ property and the abuse of young girls employed as domestic workers.
According to him, some domestic workers are subjected to harsh treatment and physical punishment in households where they are expected to provide care and assistance. The initiative draws on the Gospel, the Catechism of the Catholic Church and other Church teachings to encourage Christians to reject abuse and uphold the dignity of every person.
Ehusani confirmed that the Ford Foundation supports the initiative financially, while maintaining that Lux Terra developed the programme and determines its agenda. The initiative comes amid continuing concerns over sexual and gender-based violence in Nigeria, where women, girls and other vulnerable groups face different forms of abuse, including sexual violence, domestic violence, exploitation and harmful traditional practices.
Figures cited by the European Union Agency for Asylum, drawing on Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission, show that the commission documented 45,986 cases of sexual violence and 6,943 rape cases between January and December 2024.
The agency also reported that the commission recorded 33,256 SGBV cases between January and May 2025. These figures reflect reported cases and should not be interpreted as the total prevalence of violence nationwide, as many incidents may go unreported.
The figures underscore the importance of awareness, survivor support and effective prevention mechanisms across institutions and communities. Through the training programme, the Catholic Church hopes to strengthen the ability of future priests to recognise abuse, respond appropriately to survivors and use their pastoral influence to challenge practices that expose vulnerable people to violence.
The organisers expressed hope that sustained awareness and preventive action would help reduce SGBV and promote a culture of respect for human dignity in the Church and wider Nigerian society.