NFM Weekly Digest: Women’s Lives, Work, and the Things That Hold Them Back

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This week, five hearing-impaired Nigerian schoolgirls made it to the Technovation Girls World Summit finals, two prominent Nigerian women received international recognition, and Naija Feminists Media trained 15 women human rights defenders on digital safety. An older woman in Enugu was brutalised over a witchcraft accusation, and rural women continue to do the work of feeding communities without equal control over land. We also reported on the cost of menstrual products, pregnancy loss, sexual violence, domestic abuse, and the expectations attached to marriage and romantic relationships. Here’s what we reported on this week.

1. Nigerian Girls Are Leading; The System Must Catch Up 

October 11, the world marked the International Day of the Girl  Child, a day established by the United Nations in 2011 to recognise girls’ rights, amplify their voices, and confront the barriers that still deny them education, safety, health, and agency. The 2026 global theme centres on ending child marriage and investing in girls’ rights. In Nigeria, where child marriage rates remain high in parts of the North and gender-based violence continues to claim lives, this day demands more than symbolic posts. It demands that we celebrate the girls and women who are thriving despite the system, while refusing to look away from those the system failed.

2. Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde Misquoted to Portray Husband as “Traditional” on Gender Roles

Claim: An X user claimed that Nollywood actress Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde said her husband told her that “traditionally, a Man is not supposed to go to the market,” but that she told him she was “not gonna go.”

Verdict: False. In the interview clip attached to the post, Jalade-Ekeinde said the opposite; her husband did not say a man should not go to the market. He goes to the market himself, and she stays away because of her celebrity status. The claimant altered her words, handed her husband a traditional stance he never took, and used the altered quote to fuel attacks on both of them.

3. How Nigerian Women Are Weighing Pad Alternatives Amid Cancer Fears, Rising Costs

For Olarinoye Muheezah, her monthly flow usually didn’t come with stress. Except for the cramps that come with her period, she said she usually does things that relieve her stress. One of them was wearing a pad like every other woman. However, her dilemma started when she saw a conversation online that what she had been taught to be proper menstrual hygiene is dangerous to her

4. Senator Oluremi Tinubu Offers Cash, Period Pads to 100,000 Girls in Public Schools

Nigeria’s First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, on Tuesday, Oct 13, 2026, announced that 100,000 pupils will each receive N20,000 under the first phase of a N2 billion Learners Retention Support Programme aimed at reducing school dropouts and improving attendance, particularly among girls.

5. Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu Receives Diplomatic Leadership Award at De Pinnacle International’s 10th Anniversary

Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Her Excellency Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, has received the Distinguished Diplomatic Service and International Leadership Award for her contributions to the country’s international engagement and global representation.

6. Obiageli “Oby” Ezekwesili Demands Action to Stop Girls Being Married Off Before 18

Former Education Minister Oby Ezekwesili has called on the Federal Government and state governments to enforce 18 as the minimum age of marriage across Nigeria, citing figures showing that 23.6 million Nigerian women and girls were married before their 18th birthday. In a statement published by the Premium Times, on October 11 to mark the International Day of the Girl Child, Oby urged African governments to strengthen legal protection for girls, invest in their education and hold themselves accountable for reducing child marriage.

7. Witchcraft Accusations: Why Are Older Women Still Being Beaten, Humiliated and Hunted in Nigeria

An elderly woman in Amanfu, Ugbawka, Enugu State, was reportedly flogged, paraded and forced to eat faeces after being accused of witchcraft. A video circulated on social media on October 7, 2026, showing the woman subjected to degrading treatment. This incident has drawn attention to the persecution of older women accused of witchcraft in Nigeria, where such allegations have been linked to physical violence, social exclusion and killings.

8. WTO Chief, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Receives 2026 Trailblazer for Africa Award

World Trade Organization Director-General Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was honoured on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, with the 2026 Trailblazer for  Africa Award in Bangkok, for her decades of leadership in advancing  African interests in global economic policy and institutions.

9. Nigerian School Girls Emerge as 2026 Technovation Girls World Summit Finalists

Adegbile Teniola Vivian, Sulaiman Maryam Adenike Isah, Moses Joy, Ukpapi Theresa Uzepi and Yusuf Ruth, five hearing-impaired secondary schoolgirls from Government Secondary School, Kuje, Abuja, have emerged as global finalists at the 2026 Technovation Girls World Summit in Bengaluru, India. Their feat was announced by the Technology Beyond Disability Initiative on Monday, October 13, 2026. 

10. Romantic Copium: The Addiction to Crumbs and the Architecture of Control

Romantic love, when weaponised by a misogynist, does not operate as an emotion. It operates as a controlled substance. Society looks at addiction with self-righteous contempt, dismissing it as a moral defect, a weakness of will, or personal stupidity. In doing so, society deliberately looks away from the roots of dependency: unresolved childhood trauma, warped family dynamics, economic desperation, and an agonising, hollow loneliness. Romantic copium is not born out of a desire for degradation. It is an induced survival mechanism. 

11. Mourning in Silence: Nigeria’s Pregnancy Loss Problem

Thursday, October 15, is International  Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. And it’s another opportunity to break the silence around pregnancy loss and infant death, and offer families a dedicated space to honour their babies. 

12. Nigerian Man Adebayo Maoli Arrested in Toronto for Sexual Assault, Indecent Act

Adebayo Maoli, a 28-year-old Nigerian based in Canada, has been arrested and charged by the Toronto Police Service following allegations that he exposed himself in indecent ways to multiple victims on the city’s subway system.

13. “What is the point of marriage?”—Bisola Aiyeola Questions Social Institution

Nollywood actress and former Big Brother Naija star Bisola Aiyeola has said that while she views marriage as an important societal institution, it is not a priority or the centre of her life. Speaking on the In My Opinion podcast alongside actor Uzor Arukwe, Bisola explained that she is content with her current circumstances.

14. International Day of Rural Women: They Feed the Nation, but Who Owns the Land?

In markets across Nigeria, women sell food products to feed the nation. Some travel long distances to sell their produce; others are part of a longer chain of labour that begins on farms in rural communities. Their work moves food from the land to people’s tables, yet the women behind it face barriers to controlling the land they cultivate.

15. Senator Ireti Kingibe Gives 50 Women Business Equipment Through 2024 Empowerment Project for International Day of Rural Women

Senator Ireti Kingibe, who represents the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), has highlighted the economic challenges facing rural women and called for better access to land, credit, agricultural resources and business opportunities as the world marked International Day of Rural Women on Thursday, October 15. In a tweet posted on her Twitter account, Senator Ireti said rural women deserved more than public recognition for their contributions to agriculture, food production and their communities.

16. Going to the Root: The Making of the Misogynist and the Battered Woman

Abusive households do not just produce broken marriages. They function as factories, systematically manufacturing the next generation of tyrants and their compliant victims. The violence witnessed behind closed doors is not forgotten; it is absorbed, rehearsed, and inherited. Long before a man raises his hand or a woman learns to swallow her tongue, both have already graduated from the domestic training grounds that taught them their roles.  

17. Resilient Feminist Futures: Naija Feminists Media Trains WHRDs on Digital Safety

Naija Feminists Media (NFM) has trained women human rights defenders (WHRDs) on digital safety and social media security, equipping participants with practical skills to protect themselves and their organisations online and engage more safely in digital activism.