Advisory: Some readers might find this story distressing as it details experiences of sexual violence.
Mardiyyah Hussein* had not yet learned to roll the word ‘virgin’ on her tongue when speculations started to spread about her purity and worth after she was sexually assaulted. She was six years old, publicly beaten and shamed, while the perpetrator, an older relative in his mid-teens, roamed freely.
“I could remember people were telling my friends to stay away from me, and other children didn’t want to play with me. To date, snide remarks are still made in reference to that incident. It was a very painful memory,” she told HumAngle.
Years later, the 26-year-old started experiencing severe stomach aches and menstrual and lower abdominal pain. The pain, which slowly worsened over time, got so bad that she was admitted to the hospital and administered painkillers almost every month during her period. She lived in Sokoto State, northwestern Nigeria.
She finally sought medical help when the pain became unmanageable.
“During a scan, the man [referring to the physician] kept asking me if I was sexually active, even though I kept saying I wasn’t. He turned to the other man with him and said some things… I heard the other man say, You can’t tell with women nowadays,” which she believed was in reference to her alleged sexual history.
When she returned to the consultant with the result, he bypassed her and had a private conversation with her mother. “When he returned, he asked me again if I had regular sexual intercourse with someone, which I denied,” she recalled. Mardiyyah’s only sexual experience at that point was when she was abused; she didn’t think it was relevant to the conversation, and also didn’t feel safe enough to dig into that painful memory with him.
Nigerian medical practitioners are bound by the duty of professional secrecy or confidentiality, which obligates them not to disclose any information received in performing their duty to a third party, unless the patients waive that right or the law obligates them. And Mardiyyah, being an adult at the time, did not consent to that breach or waive that right.
Her very conservative environment meant that Mardiyyah could end up facing social condemnations as a result of purity culture due to those insinuations. The creeping shame attached to sex in that moment mirrored what she experienced as a child.
The consultant brought in another female consultant. After he excused himself, the woman asked her the same question, emphasising how she could be a safe space for her.
“I eventually gave in and opened up about my sexual trauma because I really wanted them to leave me alone. I was in so much pain, I just needed the pain to go away, and if I had any sexual history, I would have divulged that. It was after that the doctor told me they suspected I had Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID),” Mardiyyah recounted.
The doctor insisted she wouldn’t have contracted it if she had not had regular intercourse. It was five years later that she learnt that sexual intercourse was not the only way to contract PID.
PID, an infection that affects reproductive organs, can be transmitted through sex. However, other factors, such as appendicitis, endometrial biopsies, and placement of intrauterine devices (IUDs), can raise the risk of infection.
After the conversation, the doctor also said she suspected the presence of ovarian cysts in her system. However, she advised that if it really turned out to be cysts, it would be best for her to start treatment after she got married, as doing otherwise “might affect how her future husband may view her due to the intimate nature of the diagnosis and the social view of women who frequent gynaecologists in the community.”
“I remembered my uncle, who was also working in the hospital, even said they were giving me a deadline for December that year to bring a husband,” she said.
Mardiyyah was admitted to the gynaecology ward; her pain was so severe that she couldn’t really sit down and had to be on her back constantly. The female consultant left her in the care of a younger male colleague and instructed him to complete her documentation.
She recalled him putting on gloves and asking her to lie down properly. When he told her to undress, she asked if it was necessary, and he said he needed to conduct an examination for the records he was preparing.
In pain and unaware of the correct procedure, she reluctantly complied.
She felt increased pain when his fingers penetrated her vagina, after which he went on to check for “soreness” on her breast. She didn’t realise that he was running “a virginity test” until he said to her that he believed her hymen was intact.
As she tried to process what was happening, he kept talking. “He was saying some things are not medical but rather spiritual, and I should pray about them,” she recalled. In that moment, Mardiyyah felt violated and disgusted.
“Anytime a procedure involves private parts of the body, the doctor is required to explain exactly what will be done and why in accordance with the code of medical ethics in Nigeria,” Aisha Abdulghaniyyu, a medical doctor, told HumAngle. “Major red flags to watch out for include: inadequate or unclear explanation, absence of a chaperone, lack of privacy to undress or if the patient feels rushed into it. You shouldn’t have to expose more of your body than is necessary for the procedure.”
Dr Aisha noted that a chaperone could be a nurse or another staff member of the same gender as the patient, who stays in the room during the examination. If none is available, she encourages patients to request a family member to stay with them. “You also have the right to ask questions until you’re satisfied with the explanation,” she said. “You can also ‘stop’ the procedure at any point if you feel uncomfortable, as stated in the code of medical ethics.”
When the consultant returned, Mardiyyah informed her about what had happened. She ‘scolded’ him in front of her, but no serious action was taken. Mardiyyah later told her mother and her aunt and shared it with a close cousin.
Her cousin was the only person who offered a solution. She urged her to write a petition, reporting the doctor who carried out the procedure to the hospital and the state branch of the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN).
However, her mother and aunt insisted that opening up about the incident would affect her and her family’s reputation. It wasn’t just the lack of action, but also the dismissal of her pain that further scarred her.
“The fact that they seemed to be more thrilled about my ‘intact’ hymen than concerned about the violation I experienced hurt me deeply,” she said. Some of her relatives even insisted that maybe the doctor just wanted to be sure to rule out other options, and maybe the procedure was required after all.
Sometimes, she gaslights herself into thinking she could be exaggerating the impact on her. “I could remember my aunt saying I could be exaggerating how it happened or how violated I felt during the assault. I know he had no right to touch me in that way, no matter what anyone says. Even when I want to do a breast cancer screening, if I realise the doctor is a man, I don’t let him touch me,” she said.
Mardiyyah is one of many women who have experienced this kind of violation across the country.
Uvie Ogaga* was just 19 when she experienced sexual assault in a public hospital in Port Harcourt, South-South Nigeria. Her memory of the experience was repressed until a conversation about sexual assault by healthcare practitioners came up in an all-women online group chat she was part of in 2025.
When symptoms of what she later discovered to be Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) began to appear, she visited the hospital regularly between 2011 and 2014. However, in 2013, a male gynaecologist used his finger to penetrate her during a High Vaginal Swab (HVS) procedure, when he was supposed to collect a sample with a swab stick.
“I was a virgin then, and I told him this. Every time I’ve done that test before, they usually use a swab stick instead of a speculum to reduce the discomfort. On that occasion, he brought out the swab stick, but I was uncomfortable and started to fidget. He then forced his finger in, telling me to open my legs and asking why I was acting shy,” she recalled the painful experience.
Uvie felt helpless but didn’t report it due to the fear that she would not be believed. She also felt too exhausted by her health to pursue it further later on. All she could do was cry. A few months later, she came across the gynaecologist on Facebook.
“I sent him a private message along the lines of, ‘Hi, it’s Uvie. Remember me? The patient you touched inappropriately when you were supposed to be taking a sample,’ but he never responded,” the now 30-year-old said.
Lingering trauma
According to Chioma Onyemaobi, HumAngle’s in-house Clinical Psychologist, violations like the one experienced by Uvie and Mardiyyah have psychological impacts.
“Patients can end up with betrayal trauma due to the violation of the duty of care relationship between patients and doctors, which can also discourage them from going to the hospital and seeking the care they need. This can also create feelings of distrust towards public figures extending to police, managers and other people in professional capacities,” Chioma explained.
The treatment didn’t work for Mardiyyah, as her pain only persisted. She had to see another doctor, who diagnosed her with appendicitis, requiring an emergency surgery.
The whole experience left her feeling hopeless.
“I felt like they profiled me in their head, and that’s why they kept insisting on my sexual history, and I wondered about the insinuations that would have continued to be made if I did have PID instead of appendicitis,” she lamented.
Mardiyyah felt violated all over again, not just within her physical body but also in the way she was made to run other STI tests because they refused to believe what she said.
One of the scariest parts came after she found out that it happened to someone else: “I met a friend who shared a similar experience, and because I suspected it was the same doctor, I followed her to the hospital and discovered I was right when she pointed him out to me.”
Her friend told her he also fingered her in the name of “running a virginity test” without her consent when she went to the hospital for a gynaecological issue. They wanted to take it up again, but other friends discouraged them, saying that this might affect their friend’s marriage prospects if word got out, because no man would want a wife who had “been fingered by another man”.
Mardiyyah still experiences abdominal cramps and other gynaecological-related issues from time to time, but she prefers to find other pain management alternatives as she currently struggles with seeing male doctors, especially gynaecologists.
Uvie also shared her own lingering trauma with the healthcare system as she developed anxiety and fear towards the medical system.
“Even though before then I had never experienced sexual assault in the hospital, I recalled that since I was a teenager, every single time I ran a test that had to do with exposing any part of me, afterwards, the male specialists would usually ask for my number, every time, without fail. I used to do quite a few lower abdominal scans because of cysts,” she said.
This led her to start avoiding hospitals, especially government facilities. One time, another doctor attempted to take her sample without a chaperone, and she screamed as loudly as she could until he had no choice but to call in another female doctor before the sample could be taken.
“I still hate hospitals and do my research before visiting a new facility. Now I have a specialist I like, and the last two times I’ve moved houses, I made sure to stay within walking distance of that hospital,” Uvie said, adding that she feels safer with her decision, and the attempts to protect herself have proved helpful.
While Uvie’s experience highlights how vulnerable patients can be during medical examinations, younger women and girls face even more complex dangers — sometimes masked as care or kindness.
Grooming and statutory rape
After a failed suicidal attempt that led to her being admitted to a hospital in Ogun State, southwestern Nigeria, 16-year-old Angela Adeshola*, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder the previous year, met a doctor she believed to be kind. He was in his mid to late twenties, doing his housemanship at the hospital at the time, and living within the school accommodations.
“While I was still on admission in the hospital, he kept on calling me. He asked me out a few times, but I told him I had a boyfriend. He even suggested that I break up with my boyfriend, which I refused,” she recalled.
Chioma, the psychologist, describes this incident as grooming, especially considering the age and power dynamics between Angela and the doctor.
“Grooming is a manipulative process an abuser uses to gain the trust and emotional dependence of a victim to exploit them. It can lead to sexual, verbal, emotional or physical abuse. They usually would identify the victim they want to exploit, they then try to gain the person’s trust, mostly to fill in the gap that is lacking in their lives, then they would try to fulfil that person’s need, and then they usually try to isolate the person, which gives them power over the victim,” she explained.
Chioma added that most times, people don’t recognise they are being groomed, because the groomers tend to gaslight their victims, accusing them of overreacting or emphasising what they do for them. They also tend to give excessive gifts even when victims don’t need them.
“They also try to cross or disrespect your boundaries, and they will guilt-trip you into lowering your guard. Grooming is harmful because it gives room for exploitation, affecting your self-worth, trust, and self-esteem. Robbing you of your identity and genuineness, sometimes it doesn’t give room for you to see the world any differently than what they show to you,” Chioma noted.
The doctor visited her often while she was still in the hospital, and the day she was discharged, he invited her to his place. At first, she refused, but he was able to convince her eventually. It was there that he raped her.
“I was telling him to stop and asked him what he expected me to tell my boyfriend, but he didn’t answer me,” Angela recounted.
After that incident, she couldn’t walk properly, and he demanded that she try and “walk better” because of the school security officers around his accommodation. She forced herself to fix the way she walked, ignoring the soreness and pain.
When they got to his car that evening, he began to make advances at her again. Due to what had happened earlier, she believed there was no point holding back on his advances and therefore agreed. For a long time, she held the belief that the latter incident was “consensual” despite her being underage at that time.
He then bought her an after-sex pill, took her to eat, and they “agreed” not to tell anyone what had happened. He also insisted that she delete all their exchanged messages and encouraged her to meet again. At first, she didn’t recognise that what happened was statutory rape. She even felt grateful for his “kindness” and sent him a “thank you” text afterwards.
The second time it happened, his tone started to change. “He started saying what we were doing was wrong, and he also deleted his number from my phone. He even said that I set him up, and he knows the truth would come out someday,” she recounted.
Around that time, Angela brought up what happened with her psychologist, who demanded she tell her who the doctor was and informed her that what happened was statutory rape, as she was too young to give consent. At first, she did not feel safe enough to name him, but she was later pressured into giving in. However, she wasn’t sure how that was handled, as it wasn’t brought up again.
When HumAngle reached out to the hospital to get their perspective on the issue, they at first claimed he never worked there, but later told us to “please find a way to contact the said doctor”, after we presented our investigations.
Section 31 of the Child’s Rights Act defines rape as unlawful intercourse with a child under the age of 18, where lack of knowledge of the child’s age is not a valid defence. Also, section 221 of the Criminal Code applicable to the southern part of the country defines defilement as sexual intercourse with a child between 13 to 16 years. In this case, “consent” cannot be claimed to be given if the child is underage, even if they seemingly “agreed” to it.
“A few months later, my parents found out what happened to me, they refused to tell me how they found out and after another event happened to me in the school, they removed me from that university,” Angela recounted.
She was later admitted to a different psychiatric hospital shortly after leaving the school. There, she told the psychiatrist about the incident, and the hospital wanted to take it up as a statutory rape case. It felt safer to speak out openly to this new doctor because it wasn’t her school environment where information could leak, especially after she confided in two people and they told others.
“I really don’t know what happened, but what the doctors there told me is that they tried reaching his number for a long time, but he didn’t pick up, and when he eventually did, he denied it. I had to start over in a less reputable university after wasting two years in my previous school, and the whole event really damaged a part of me,” Angela lamented.
The incident made her hate herself and affected her self-worth. She started to believe she was a terrible person and didn’t deserve anything, and it affected the way she perceived men, especially male doctors, leading to suicide attempts. She texted him after the last incident and told him to stop sleeping with his underage patients, among other things, but he only demanded to know ‘what she wanted from him.’
HumAngle found that the doctor is still practising at a federal government-owned hospital in the country’s North West.
During this investigation, HumAngle was able to track his identity and find details about him, including his LinkedIn account, using the details we got from the source. We also took steps to establish his identity by asking Angela to identify him among several other pictures of other people. She picked out his picture twice.
When HumAngle reached out to him for clarification on the allegations, his legal representative sent a response denying the allegations.
A surgical violation
For some survivors, the trauma happens not in secret meetings but in brightly lit operating rooms, where trust and vulnerability are most exposed.
In 2021, Firdaus Akin* found an unfamiliar growth in her right breast while she was lying on her chest one evening. However, she didn’t seek medical help until a year later.
Her mother first took her to a female doctor who said the diameter was big and needed to be removed through surgery. Naturally, she was worried, but she convinced herself everything would turn out right in the end.
The female doctor could not do the surgery, and she struggled to get a female surgeon in her city. As a practising Muslim who covers from head to toe, it was not an easy decision to open up in front of a strange man, but she didn’t have a choice, as prioritising her health was paramount.
The family doctor delivered all her mother’s children. As an adult, Firdaus visited his hospital only a couple of times and had no strong connection to him. Her parents’ financial situation was the main reason they used his hospital because he allowed them to pay back the amount over a stretch of time.
She innocently believed that his sharing the same faith would make him understand her awkwardness and reluctance better, but instead, he started making fun of her shyness, alongside comments that made her uncomfortable.
“He would also ask stupid questions like if I have pubic hair, and would make reference to the hair on other parts of my body. I returned home crying after the first check-up, but my mum was very dismissive. She even said my breast is not even that big or special for me to be making so much ruckus about nothing, and even asked if I would have preferred to die instead,” she recounted. Her mother’s reluctance to understand her hurt her deeply, even though she didn’t expect much from her due to their troubled history.
According to Dr Aisha, “If the doctor touches areas not related to the problem or makes comments that feel personal rather than professional. Simply put: if something feels ‘off,’ it is important to take that feeling seriously. Trust your intuition and don’t feel threatened because the practitioner is a professional. If at any point you feel your boundaries have been crossed, you have the right to speak up and ask the doctor to stop immediately.”
She emphasised that doctors are only supposed to do what is medically necessary as regards the specific condition of the patient and what the patient has agreed to.
“If a doctor tries to examine you without explaining why, or performs something you didn’t consent to, or if they seem evasive when you ask what the procedure is for or dismiss you when you raise concerns or show signs of discomfort, and the physician seems adamant without properly explaining why it’s needed, you should get concerned,” Dr Aisha explained. “Good doctors want their patients to feel safe and informed, not confused or pressured.”
Firdaus said the first incident happened during the surgery. “I was put under anaesthesia, and at a point, it started to wear off. I regained consciousness for a bit, only to discover that my scrub was removed and I was left with nothing but my pants on. I later learnt that my scrub was stained with blood and they just made a decision to remove it instead of changing it,” she recounted.
After the surgery, she had to return to the hospital a few times for post-surgery care and in a few instances during the course of examination, the family doctor would touch her inappropriately in places he didn’t need to touch, like her thighs. He would also make crass comments about her breasts.
“One particular day, he ‘checked’ my navel, under my arms, and also proceeded to stroke my nipples in the name of examination,” Firdaus said, adding that she was shocked and didn’t know what to do.
Another time, while changing her dressing after the surgery, he touched the nipple on her unaffected breast and claimed he was just trying to adjust it when she asked him why he was touching her in that manner. She didn’t understand it as harassment at first, but she felt violated and knew he was being unprofessional and crossing boundaries.
Even though sometimes there were nurses around, they were usually focused on their own work, and nobody really paid any attention to them during examinations.
“I am really trying so hard not to cry while recounting this experience because it’s very triggering. But I believe we have to say these things so that people will know what’s going on and so that women in the medical field can step up to those roles,” Firdaus added.
There were times she couldn’t sleep well after the violations; sometimes she had nightmares of someone pulling at her nipples, and she would cry a lot. Even the stretch of time didn’t make that feeling go away, as the nightmares still pop up occasionally.
Fortunately, she hasn’t had more reasons to visit the hospital, and when a health reason pops up, she would rather go to the hospital at her university because she believes there would be more accountability there if something like that were to happen.
“Recently, I experienced anal prolapse. I was scared to go to the hospital because I was worried I would end up needing care or surgery from a male doctor, and I don’t feel safe with them. Instead, I spoke to my roommate, who is a nurse,” Firdaus said. She encouraged her to increase her fruit and fibre intake and also do Kegel exercises, which have been helpful.
Another time, she couldn’t visit a doctor for a menstrual issue because she was afraid she could meet a male doctor who would ask to see intimate parts of her body.
“Some people may say it’s not harassment, but it is definitely unprofessional, and it made me feel violated. I know people may ask why I didn’t speak out, but in all honesty, I didn’t know what to do, and I still feel so stupid for not saying anything, even years later. And because he was an elderly man, I was confused and didn’t know how to react,” she added.
Yet, the breach of professional boundaries isn’t limited to physical procedures. In mental health spaces, emotional manipulation and invasive questioning can be just as violating.
Left feeling violated and unsafe
Even before inattentiveness started to interfere with her studies, 23-year-old Aria Dele* had always felt out of place in the world, but the interference pushed her to take the step to finally get a diagnosis for what she suspected to be Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) at her school’s Teaching Hospital, in Ilorin, North Central Nigeria. The general doctor gave her a recommendation to see a psychiatrist at the hospital.
It started with him inquiring about her background information, which she was willing to offer, but when the questions got to sexual history, she became uncomfortable responding and expressed that. “He was asking how many sexual partners I have had and if I had experienced sexual assault. He was even asking me how my sexual experience felt for me and so many other questions that felt invasive,” she said.
Even when he left the questions and asked other things, he still kept circling back to the same questions. As she expressed her discomfort, she noticed his demeanour started to change, and she could see the visible irritation on his face. Seeing how angry it seemed to make him made her feel more unsafe.
She answered a couple of them. Then, he wanted to know who had harassed her and how she had been harassed. This was especially hard for her because she had lived most of her life trying to make herself smaller to avoid men’s attention due to her experiences with them in the past. “I would try to make my hips and waist smaller and stop them from swaying to protect myself from unwanted attention,” she said.
According to Chioma, one reason that may lead a psychiatrist to ask a client about their sexual history is to rule out any case of abuse, lingering trauma, or understand behaviours or relationships, depending on the presenting complaints, which can be important.
“However, the doctor has no right in that case to go further than that. It can also be seen as victimising the patient, which is unethical and can make them feel unsafe. It is also the wrong way to get the result they were aiming for,” the clinical psychologist explained.
Although Aria felt violated after the experience, she dismissed it and focused on the fact that she at least got it over with.
During the course of her studies, she was required to take classes at different government organisations in the city. Her first place of assignment was the psychiatric clinic.
“This was the course with the most credits in my final year. We were made to observe how the doctors attended to patients to see in practice what we learnt in theory.”
Unfortunately, the first psychiatrist she met that day was the doctor she had seen earlier; he kept staring at her in a way that made her uncomfortable, and she tried to avoid him as much as she could, which led to her missing so many classes.
“I was also worried if he might get upset or vindictive and give a review that might impact my grades. And because I missed some classes, I got a B instead of an A. I never felt comfortable enough to talk about it because the power dynamics felt imbalanced, as he was a consultant. I only told my friend, who advised me not to return to him and to keep my head down in classes,” she said.
The experience made her feel small and uncomfortable, and it triggered previous memories of being sexually violated in different ways in the past: “I felt like he was doing something to me I couldn’t pinpoint at that time, and it seemed to me like he was taking pleasure from hearing about my sexual history and kept trying to squeeze more information.”
This experience made her feel more guarded when interacting with other healthcare professionals and wary of seeing other psychiatrists in the future.
One time in a conversation with some friends who knew the doctor, she asked what they thought about that doctor, and the friend had a lot of good things to say about him, which made her feel more uncomfortable.
“I believe sexual harassment could be what I went through. A small part of me feels like I am exaggerating how violated I felt, making me feel silly and guilty for seeing it as sexual harassment, just because he didn’t put his hands on me, even though I knew it was a very unsafe environment for me then,” Aria said.
This discouraged her from ever seeking a diagnosis again. However, she finally got her diagnosis when her sister paid for her to get one in a private clinic that was giving discounts at that time.
Even routine medical processes, like scans or laboratory procedures, can turn dehumanising when consent and respect are ignored.
For Khadijat Alao*, a sickle cell crisis beyond what she usually experienced pushed her into seeking medical help in August at a government hospital in Kaduna, northwestern Nigeria, where the doctor recommended a scan. During the scan, a male lab technology student was present, and no explanation was given for that, which made her feel uncomfortable. She asked one of the women if he was supposed to be there, and she assured her that he would leave.
“They gave me a scrub to change into, only for me to come back and see him still in the room. I asked again, and the woman said I should not worry about it. But because I insisted, he started throwing a tantrum claiming that he cannot afford to miss the X-ray, that he has an exam or test, and he would be asked about it,” she recalled.
Apart from feeling angry and violated, it also made her feel small and dismissed. “It made me feel like I wasn’t a human being. Like I was a specimen or something. They didn’t prepare me for this and didn’t ask for my consent. I insisted he leave.”
They convinced him to move to a cubicle in the room, and if not for her underwear, the way she was angled would have exposed her vagina to the student: “When the procedure started, he came out of the cubicle, making me feel violated all over again. My leg was open, and one of the other women tried to drag him out, but he kept fighting to be there. I did not feel respected as a human, and that feeling followed me for a very long time.”
She believed she would have at least been mentally prepared if they had told her or asked her beforehand.
A system that fails to protect
These experiences, though different in setting and form, reflect a troubling pattern: a health system where patients, especially women, often feel unsafe, unheard, and unprotected.
Dr Aisha encouraged patients who experience any form of violation in the hospital to write down the details of what happened, including time, place, and what was said or done. “Collect as much evidence as possible. You can report it to the hospital management or, if necessary, the medical regulatory body. If you can’t reach the body, you can report to another physician; they are obligated to report such cases to the medical body according to the code of ethics, which states, a physician shall deal honestly with patients and colleagues, and report to the appropriate authorities those physicians who practice unethically or incompetently or who engage in fraud or deception.”
“And don’t hesitate to seek emotional support or professional counselling from trusted people. No one should feel ashamed for speaking out. Healthcare is meant to protect you, not harm you,” she added.
*All asterisked names have been pseudonymised to protect the anonymity of the victims.