Injustice After Death: Gendered Violence, Digital Feminist Advocacy, and the Ochanya Case in Nigeria

This report makes three key theoretical contributions. First, it extends feminist analyses of gender-based violence by conceptualising injustice after death as a distinct form of harm, wherein institutional inertia, reputational politics, and elite gatekeeping continue to reproduce violence beyond the victim’s life. Second, it advances digital feminism scholarship by demonstrating how online advocacy functions as a parallel justice infrastructure, compensating for state failure while simultaneously exposing activists to intensified harassment, delegitimisation, and trauma. Third, by foregrounding the emotional and psychological costs borne by highly engaged advocates, the study contributes to theories of emotional labour and secondary trauma, revealing how contemporary justice movements rely on feminised, unpaid affective work under conditions of minimal institutional protection. Collectively, these contributions reposition digital feminist advocacy not only as a site of resistance but also as a structurally precarious form of political labour shaped by power, visibility, and vulnerability.