Tales of Harassment and Sexualization in Church: More Black Women Speak Up
Written by Shalom Esene
In recent weeks, a BBC documentary exposing disturbing revelations of physical abuse and sexual assault by the late Nigerian pastor – TB Joshua of the Synagogue Church of Christ (SCOAN) – jolted the global community. The allegations of physical abuse and sexual assault against female members of his congregation sparked widespread outrage.
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident: Instances of pastors, religious leaders, and even women within religious communities perpetrating abuse, sexualization, and harassment, particularly targeting Black girls, have come to light before.
I recall a distressing encounter during a church service over a decade ago. A significantly older woman, the wife of the choirmaster, approached me and cautioned me not to repeat an armless dress I’d worn to Church on that Sunday. “You could tempt the men in Church,” she said. I was merely ten years old at the time.
Black women often find themselves among the most vulnerable groups in any setting, and this extends even into religious spaces. Instances of casual misogyny, body shaming, and sexual harassment perpetrated by religious figures have tarnished the sanctity of these spaces, turning what should be havens of safety and acceptance for women into arenas for exploitation and oppression. Some women, many of whom prefer to remain anonymous, have come forward to share their experiences.
Sarah, a clinical research physician, recalls an early memory of harassment as a teenager. “I’d just gotten an earlobe piercing, adding to the first regular childhood-given piercings most girls have, and when I went to Church, lots of people harassed me about why I’d done it, told me that I was a bad person for doing it, that I would go to hell.” Over the years, Sarah suffered more harassment and policing within and outside the Church at the hands of religious men and women, including her clothes gathered and burnt in a bonfire in her absence, because they weren’t “godly” enough. “I’m still a Christian,” she said, “But I stopped going to Church after the event.”
Genevieve was a seventh grader at the time, when after performing a song in Church during a midweek service – the only time young choristers were allowed to sing – her pastor came up to her. “He warned never to repeat the skirt I’d worn because it was too short, or he would ban me from singing.” Genevieve felt awfully aware of all the eyes on her as her pastor talked about her skirt in front of the congregation. “I wanted to cry,” she said. “Thinking about it now, I guess it was the reason I stopped going to midweek services. I loved singing but I was so embarrassed that I lost interest after that happened. I was maybe 12.”
“Once, when I was sixteen,” said AY, a content writer, “a man active in our youth ministry told me to get married quickly.” When AY asked the reason for his advice, he said, ‘Look at your size’, propagating adultification bias, and insinuating a rhetoric rife in her culture that girls who physically mature faster than others ought to be married sooner. “He looked me up and down when he said it. It made me so uncomfortable. I was really young then but I’ve never forgotten.”
“It’s interesting,” AY continued, “because the same Church members who casually shame me and offer me unsolicited advice about my body all the time, also never ask after me or check in on me whenever I’m absent from Church.”
This leads one to wonder if these “concerns” stem from a place of sincerity, or just the need to humble Black women and girls and make them feel small.
Hannah, another writer, shares a similar experience. “I’d just turned 12 about a month before the whole thing – I hadn’t even seen my period – and a Church warden stopped me and point-blank asked me if the dress I was wearing was ‘good’ for my body. I was confused and speechless. What could possibly be indecent about a 12-year-old’s dress? Looking back now, of course, I was being sexualized as a pre-teen.”
Filmmaker Olive can relate to being sexualized within the four walls of her Church. “I was ten,” she says, “and we were rehearsing this dance routine to present the next Sunday.” One of Olive’s female instructors called her aside and told her she was dancing too provocatively. “She told me I needed to tone it down.”
After being scolded about her dancing, Olive felt discouraged: “I was just doing the dance steps she taught. I didn’t understand what was going on at the time, and how sexist and problematic that was. How can a ten-year-old be provocative? I only remember feeling so demoralized.” Olive ended up pulling from the dance afterward. “I didn’t perform with the other kids.”
Sena, a UI/UX designer, struggled with navigating advances from a Church member in his mid-twenties when she was sixteen. “Everyone in the Church knew I was sixteen. I had a reputation as the youngest choir member. He was a chorister too,” she says. It started with the man sitting beside Sena during choir rehearsals. “We went home via the same vehicle, and he would insist on paying for my transport. I wasn’t allowed to decline, and it became too frequent.”
At first, Sena was polite about it: “Young girls are ingrained with politeness, even at their own peril.” Soon, polite conversations turned into blatant flirting. “I did everything but scream ‘Leave me alone.’ One day, he went all out with it, and told me it’d been long since he’d last touched a woman.” When Sena lied that she had a boyfriend to get him off her back, he told her, “He can’t be serious about you. But I am, and I’m willing to wait for you.”
During rehearsals later that week, one of the Church figures called Sena aside to plead on the man’s behalf, trying to convince her to agree to give him a chance. “I kept repeating that I was sixteen.” When nothing that Sena said resonated, she eventually had to let her mum in on what was going on. “That Sunday was the last day we attended that Church,” she said.
Nala, who was once a teenager in her Church choir, has had her fair share of unsolicited advice. “This particular period in my life was so exciting because I’d just gotten promoted from backup chorister to main chorister,” she said. “It was all I wanted for a long time, and every day I would show up for practice all joyous and bubbly and just greeting and talking to everyone.” On one of these occasions, Nala was called aside by an older female leader in the Church. “She pulled me aside and told me she’d been watching me for a while and wanted to warn me about the way I was being too friendly. And not just with everybody – but with the men in the choir. She asked me to ‘tone it down.’” Nala felt genuinely puzzled. “I tried to explain that it wasn’t like that at all, but she didn’t let me speak. She went on a rant about how young girls were in the habit of seducing boys, accused me of being too proud to take correction because I had begun to ‘grow breasts and buttocks’ – she said those words – and was now too mature to be advised. She said that if I tried anything with boys, she would make sure to disgrace me out of the Church.”
Shocked and aghast, Nala tried but couldn’t get a word in for herself. “Soon after that,” she said, “I left the choir.”
Amanda can relate to suffering verbal harassment in Church. “Maybe it’s my body type. I’ve always been busty, always been told to cover up even when I’m quite literally covered up.” A memory that stands out for Amanda was a conversation with a male lead in youth Church years ago. “He said it was my duty to dress well because many Christian brothers don’t have what it takes to control themselves.” Sometime after that, Amanda had her breasts fondled by another church member. “It was during New Year’s Eve service; he fondled my breasts while asking me how they were so big.” Amanda never told anyone about this. “I don’t think I ever will,” she said, “because he’s a respectable member of the Church.”
“I had a pastor in our university parish who almost always preached about girls’ virginities,” said Angel, a podcast host and voice-actress. “You’d hear things like, ‘Tell the young girl next to you to keep her dignity’. And it was always girls who were supposed to preserve these supposed dignities.” Angel stopped going to Church for a while because the sexist teachings bothered her. “But at some point, I decided to express my feelings about the teachings to my pastor. We had a conversation about it where I told him I felt his preachings were sexist and enabled rape.”
The next Sunday, Angel’s pastor got on the pulpit: “He looked straight at me and said, Some of you go to nightclubs then come and complain that you were raped.’ Where did that come from? Till today, I’ve never even been to a nightclub, but so what if I have? How is that a justification for rape, and coming from a pastor?” Angel doesn’t go to church anymore, and she’s never been better. “I had to do it to protect my mental health, and now, the peace I feel is unmatched.”
From these shared experiences and many more that cannot be contained in a single story, it becomes evident that the Church which should serve as a sanctuary for everyone and a safe space for the more vulnerable in society too often becomes the genesis of oppression for young Black women, not only perpetuating but also exacerbating the challenges women navigate beyond its walls.
Black women deserve better.
Black women deserve Churches that foster genuine protection, respect, and empowerment. Black women deserve Churches not only as institutions but communities that will heed a call for reform, and hold accountable both leaders and members who make up smaller but equally meaningful units in the Church. But if these critical calls for reform fall on closed ears, Black women are already taking steps to safeguard their mental well-being, as reflected in some of these women who are now choosing self-preservation. May this collective stand inspire a wave of change, and embolden more women to reclaim agency over their lives, free from the shackles of Church-inflicted harassment and trauma.
Shalom Esene (she/her) is a journalist with works appearing in Black Ballad, Lolwe, OkayAfrica, Black Girl Times, and elsewhere. She emerged runner-up in the Abebi Inaugural Award for Afro-nonfiction for her essay ‘Untimely,’ and won AMAKA Studio’s creator grant for her essay ‘Time to Address the Eldest African Daughter Syndrome.’ She lives in Nigeria.
