DIMENSIONS OF FEMALE NARRATIVE CAUSES: PATHWAYS TO PREVENTION OF ESCALATING CASES OF MARITICIDE IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Purpose The Purpose of this mixed method study was to investigate the causes and modes of alarming rise of mariticide as narrated by Nigerian women who murder their boyfriends or husbands. Our secondary objective was to establish the responses of judges, counsels, social workers, police officers prison officials and government to mariticide which is a new phenomenon under the criminal justice administration in Nigeria.   

Method Three women who are standing trial for mariticide were interviewed to determine the causes and to know the methods and weapons of execution of mariticide in Nigeria. We further interviewed stake holders in the criminal justice system such as judges, counsels, social workers, police officers and prison officials in order to know their responses. The interviews were semi structured. Another phase of data collection was done through a thorough survey of both decided and ongoing cases of mariticide in Nigeria’s Newspapers. Qualitative analysis of the domestic legal framework on mariticide were also examined.   Conclusion Girls and women who perpetrated mariticide did so through stabbing with violent objects especially knives after they may have confirmed acts of infidelities on their husbands/boyfriends handsets. Other causes of mariticide were Jealousy, domestic violence, forced marriage, lack of sexual performance by the husband, husband having an illegitimate child and poverty. The absence of a large-scale national mariticide data set in Nigeria was a limitation for the researchers but the results from this study has provided an ease to this shortcoming.