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Articles

CJBSS: Vol. 10 No. 2, Dec. 2019

Terrorism, Sexuality and Sexual Violence in North-Eastern Nigeria: A Psychosexual Analysis

  • Adejoh Sunday Ph.D
DOI
https://doi.org/10.20370/cjbss.v10i2.1807
Submitted
December 16, 2019
Published
2019-12-16

Abstract

The emergence of Boko Haram terrorist organization and its activities has precipitated galaxies of security challenges for the Nigerian state. Thousands of Nigerians have been killed,  properties worth millions have been destroyed, increase in Internally Displays Persons and IDPs camps and other  forms  of humanitarian crisis and post-conflict reconstruction challenges. Boko Haram has employed Sexual Violence such as rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced marriage, and other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against women and girls directly or indirectly as part of its strategy towards achieving its goals and objectives. There is a causal relationship between the sexuality of terrorist and sexual violence. Sexual violence by Boko Haram is an integral part of its strategy and weapon of terror as women’s bodies are used by them as battlegrounds, serving the dual purpose of spoils of war and a means of terrorizing the populace. It is based on the foregoing that this paper attempts to investigate the nexus between sexuality and sexual violence by Boko Haram terrorist group with a view to appreciate the role of psychology in the study of terrorism. It is the position of this paper that the sexual behaviour of Boko Haram is a product of their psychological, phenotypic, physiognomic and ideological makeup. Methodologically, this paper relied on secondary sources, Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Sigmund Freud psychoanalytic theory as tool for data collection and analysis. Finally, it recommends among others the need for the study of terrorist psychology.