 Across the world, one in three women has been bitten, co-est into sex or abused by people they know, love and trust. Here in Nigeria, one in five women has been a victim of abuse. Gender-based violence is the leading cause of death and disability of women between the ages of 19 to 44. Queen James, not her real name, a 47-year-old writer based in Lagos, was married off at 17. She barely knew the man who was to become her husband. I just finished from secondary school and my parents were like, you have to marry. That they have somebody for me. I tried to argue that I want to go back to school. My parents said they don't have money for me to further education. Queen enjoyed the first decade of her marriage. Her husband paid for her university education and they had three children together. In 2002, Queen's sister-in-law claimed she was a witch. Her husband believed it and turned against her. She suffered financial deprivation and domestic violence. While I was in school, everything was going well until the senior sister came into the house. The sister kept telling him different stories that he saw a revelation. I'm going to kill him. I want to give him a stroke. At a point he now told him that in fact I'm a witch, that I'm going to kill him if he doesn't send me out of the house. He started beating me every day. If he has small problems in the office and come back, the sister would tell him, ah, it's your wife. He wants them to take you from work. The United Nations defines violence as any act that results in physical, sexual, or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty. Domestic violence is violence that occurs in a domestic setting, such as a marriage or cohabitation, committed by people in an intimate relationship against the other person. Every night you squeeze my neck, tell me to confess all the wicked things I'm doing to him or the wicked things I'm doing to the children that there's a revelation I want to, you know, kill my children. I've already made a plan to kill him and take over his property that I should tell him what I want to kill him. Everything was just like, you know, like a dream to me. He did not allow me to go to shop. I only go and buy things and the girl that was in the shop was the one selling at a point. The now locker of the shop came back to the house. When I returned back to the house, I started looking for work. Anywhere I want to go on work, he would go and tell them not to employ me. Like many women, Queen did not file for a divorce or leave her abusive relationship. She feared for her safety and the welfare of her children and decided to endure the misery. One day in 2005, Queen's husband did more than bit her. He armed himself with a pestle and broke her bone. It was even my husband that used to say, piston, you know, this mortar handle and hit on my leg. My leg was broken, so I managed to my sister's place. My sister took me to the hospital. When I got there, they did X-ray. They said I have bone fracture. I called my parents and said they should send me to the village I went. They took me to hospital where they did my bone. I was there for three months. That abuse contravened the protection against domestic violence law of Lagos State, 2007. The law prohibits violence against any person. It also empowers a police officer to arrest persons suspected of committing violent offences. In addition, it directs the police to render assistance to victims of domestic violence. More than four billion Naira was allocated to the police for travels and transport in Nigeria's 2005 national budget. But when Queen visited the police to get a report, officers demanded 6,000 Naira as transport fare. She also claims the police officers accepted a bribe from her husband to dismiss the case. I quite remember one of them saying that they have to treat that case very well because the man has paid a lot for the case, meaning they've collected money. A 2019 survey by the Social Economic Rights and Accountability Project CERAP reports that the Nigerian police force is the most corrupt institution in Nigeria. The reports stated that a bribe is paid in 54% of interactions with the police and that there is a 63% probability that an average Nigerian will be asked to pay a bribe each time he or she interacted with the police. With the police allegedly eating from the palm of a former husband, they accuse her of attempted murder, arrested her sister, and he served her divorce papers. The statement that Amrubas infested his house, they went away with property worth 2.5 million with the cash of 180,000 attempting murder and all that, they should go and they shoot the sister on the head. I say, ah, this is not true. I gave my own statement. When I gave my own statement, they were now dragging me to jail, so I shouted I was pleading for help. Before I knew it, they came, they called me this time around and they showed me a race warrants and that in my race warrants, no bail. That is how they took me to jail. High experience went downhill from there. The police turned around to arrest a victim who approached them for protection and locked her up at Kirikiri Maximum Prison for almost three weeks. Do you know that when the police, my senior sister was in period, police women could not even help even when we were begging them, please. This lady is on her period. Can you help us bring tissue? You did not bring. And there are other women like that. The police were smelling. There was nothing. I think she had to use her head tie to try and wrap and use. The police are very rude. They don't take care of their inmate at all. They don't want to know whether what they have accused you of is true or is false. These details expose a bridge of fundamental rights to dignity of the human person, stipulated in section 34 of the Nigerian Constitution. We put these allegations of corruption and human rights abuse in police custody to the Nigerian police force. The situation under conduct was very difficult. I carefully looked up the situation under conduct of our men. We didn't allow it. We didn't let them get that close to me. They committed this case. They were accused of police. So they put up the tension to me for their reasons. So we take action. I think that is unprofessional or a late example to acknowledge. So in this case now, don't let me get the facts. I have to monitor it. I will not disappoint you. All of those sides that I have turned that woman we are the other front of people, they will face this kind of procedure. And fiscal punishment will be made out of them. With the intervention of a non-governmental organization Project Alert, Queen was set free. But she has not seen her children ever since. It was during this period that I met with Project Alert on violence against women. They took over the case. They stood by me. Went through the case. Went for seven years. I was going to finish the case after seven years and I was set free. Meanwhile, my children was taking from me from the time they pushed me out of that house and did not have access to my children. Until now. Josephine Chukomah is Executive Director of Project Alert. She condemns Nigeria's police force for breaking the domestic violence law of Lagos State 2007 and calls for these reforms in the force. It's about the system not working. And why is the system not working? First and foremost is the issue of funding. What are they given? What funding do they get to operate? And then the capacity, the training of the officials, how professional are they? You need officers that are trained and well resourced to respond to cases of sexual and gender abuse violence. Like many women, Queen now wears the scars of a broken leg, a broken marriage and suffers the consequence of a broken justice system.