Chiezugo Obii-Okpala knows that when she visits Yaba market in Lagos she’s going to be harassed. Whether she’s shopping for clothes or hurrying past the stalls that line the road to get on a bus, she will not be left alone.

“You’re dragged, called all sorts of names, harassed – and when you don’t give into that, you’re followed around,” says the 24-year-old pharmacist.

In December, under the banner “market march”, women walked around Yaba to protest against harassment, groping and catcalling. It was a small group, numbering about 20, but “Yaba” trended on social media throughout the day, with tens of thousands of people sending their support. An online petition to push for better enforcement of the law has 23,000 signatories so far. Organisers are now planning similar protests at markets across Nigeria.

Yaba market, one of the busiest in Lagos, consists of a huge, covered shopping centre and open-air shops near the main road. Amid the chaos and congestion, young women and girls visiting the market, or simply passing by, are exposed to harassment and bullying.

Male stallholders, desperate to make sales, often touch and grope young women and girls. Attempts to brush them off usually attract lewd comments and insults.

“We touch to get their attention,” Kenneth, who owns a clothing store at the market, says with a smile. “When you just say: ‘Hey, I sell jeans and chinos,’ they won’t look at you.”

Damilola Marcus, who has experienced harassment in local markets, launched market march in October last year. She was inspired after seeing a Twitter thread by Nigerian writer and designer Ozzy Etomi denouncing what she called “acceptable casual harassment” and talked about how, as a young girl, she was “dragged, catcalled and solicited by men in the market”.

But what stands out most in memory, was how normal it was, as a young child, to be dragged, catcalled & solicited by men in the market. Walking through narrow pathways with stalls was particularly uncomfortable because these men would reach out, grab and touch you.."my wife!" — Ozzy Etomi (@ozzyetomi) October 9, 2018

“I think the stories hit me in a way that I couldn’t ignore any further,” says Marcus, 25, who runs a design studio in Lagos. “I felt like more could be done than just telling the stories. It’s normalised but it is not normal.”

Dressed in yellow T-shirts, the women, and some men, walked past the market holding placards and chanting: “Stop touching us”. With a rattan hat on her head and a megaphone in her hand, Marcus railed against the harassment of women at the market. More women and men joined the protest.

As they marched through the main road, some angry male traders hurled sachets of water and boiled corn at the protesters and threw out insults. “We must touch,” some traders retorted. They blamed the women for dressing “inappropriately”, and told them to stay at home if they want to avoid harassment.

“I knew they were going to resist but the belligerence was way beyond my expectation ,” says Marcus.

“But it also helped me realise that the march was going to be effective, and it was going to be the start of something different in markets in urban areas.”

Busayo Oni went to Yaba three days after the protest.

“I was careful as always, but even as they were marketing their goods, nobody touched me,” says Oni, who runs an online food store.

“In fact, I was really impressed when one [male stallholder] said: ‘Aunty, I’m educated, I won’t touch you.’ I am really thankful to market march, because without them the market would still be a mess.”

Kenneth, a clothing seller, says things are changing. “People are more serious about touching now, and we now see that it is chasing our customers away, so we have to think about it.”

Although Lagos state criminal law classifies sexual harassment as a felony, and the market association can issue fines for any seller or trader who harasses women, implementation is weak.

The market march movement is making plans to teach traders about boundaries and how their behaviour could affect women – and sales. The group also wants the government to set up anti-sexual harassment squads to patrol markets.

Market march is working with two other organisations in the south-eastern city of Enugu to organise a protest at the major market of Ogbete in February.

Another protest is planned for Lagos in March, this time at the city’s largest computer market. Market march has set up a website to inform people about forthcoming protests.

“It is a very long fight and I know that we might have to march again in Yaba,” says Marcus.

“Harassment in markets is so cultural and normalised and ingrained, so it is not something we can fight in one day.”