The VAPPA  defines domestic violence as any act perpetrated on any person in a domestic relationship where such act causes harm or may cause imminent harm to the safety, health or well-being of any person.

"WHO Domestic violence figures,"notes that domestic violence is used in many countries to refer to partner violence but the term can also encompass child or elder abuse, or abuse by any member of a household.^[6]

VAPPA  defines "stalking" as repeatedly watching or loitering outside of or near the building or place where such a person resides, works, carries out business, studies or happens to be; or following, pursuing or accosting any person in a manner that induces fear or anxiety.

The  Criminal Law of Lagos State  defines harassment as unwelcome sexual advances, request for sexual favors and other visual, verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, which, when submitted to or rejected: (a) implicitly or explicitly affects a person's employment or educational opportunity or unreasonably interferes with the person's work or educational performance; (b) implicitly or explicitly suggests that submission to or rejection of the conduct will be a factor in academic or employment decisions; or (c) creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive learning or working environment. Any person who sexually harasses another is guilty of a felony and is liable to imprisonment for three years.

VAPPA  defines victim as any person or persons, who, individually or collectively, have suffered harm including (i) physical or mental injury, (ii) emotional suffering, (iii) economic loss, or (iv) substantial impairment of their fundamental rights, through acts or omissions that are in violation of this act or the criminal laws of the country. VAPPA provides that the aforementioned includes the immediate family or dependents of the direct victim and any person who has suffered harm in intervening to assist victims in distress.

The term abuser has been defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as (a) someone who treats another person in a cruel, violent or unfair way; or (b) someone who uses something in a way that is harmful or morally wrong.

VAPPA  defines protection order as an official legal document signed by a judge that restrains an individual or state actor from further abusive behavior toward a victim.

Section 5 of the PADVL empowers the court to issue an interim protection order against a respondent; notwithstanding the fact that the respondent has not been given notice of the proceedings. Such an order may be made where the respondent is committing or has committed an act of domestic violence and where undue hardship may be suffered by the complainant as a result of such domestic violence if a protection order is not issued immediately. Furthermore, Section 7 of the law stipulates that the court may make protection orders that prohibit the respondent from committing any act or any further act of domestic violence, enlisting the help of another person to commit any such act, entering a residence shared by himself/herself and the complainant, among others.

The term cause of action has been defined by the  Supreme Court of Nigeria  as the fact or combination of facts that give rise to a right to sue^[7]

The  Criminal Law of Lagos State  defines rape as unlawful sexual intercourse by any man with a woman or girl without her consent. This law states that a woman or girl does not consent to sexual intercourse if she submits to the act by reason of force, impersonation, threat or intimidation of any kind, fear of harm or false or fraudulent representation as to the nature of the act. Sexual intercourse is complete on the slightest penetration of the vagina. A man found guilty of the offence of rape is liable on conviction to imprisonment for life.

The National Criminal Justice Reference Service defines marital rape as any sexual activity by a legal spouse that is performed or caused to be performed without the consent of the other spouse.

Marital rape is currently not an offence in Nigeria. The Nigerian Criminal Code in Section 357 states that:

Any person who has unlawful carnal knowledge of a woman or girl, without her consent, or with her consent, if the consent is obtained by force or by means of threats or intimidation of any kind, or by fear of harm, or by means of false and fraudulent representation as to the nature of the act, or, in the case of a married woman, by personating her husband, is guilty of an offence which is called rape.

Section 6 of the Criminal Code defines unlawful carnal knowledge as that which takes place otherwise than between husband and wife; and the offence is complete upon penetration.

In the Penal Code, Section 281(1) provides that:

A man is said to commit rape who... has sexual intercourse with a woman in any of the following circumstances — (a) against her will; (b) without her consent; (c) with her consent, when her consent has been obtained by putting her in fear of death or of hurt; (d) with her consent, when the man knows that he is not her husband and that her consent is given because she believes that he is another man to whom she is or believes herself to be lawfully married; (e) with or without her consent, when she is under 14 years of age or of unsound mind.

Similarly, under the Penal Code, there is no offence of marital rape, provided the wife has attained the age of puberty.

It has been argued that the VAPPA prepares the ground for future prosecution of marital rape in Lagos State as it defines "domestic violence" as:

physical abuse; sexual abuse exploitation including but not limited to rape, incest and sexual assault; starvation; emotional, verbal and psychological abuse; economic abuse and exploitation; denial of basic education; intimidation; harassment; stalking; hazardous attack including acid bath with offensive or poisonous substance; damage to property; entry into the complainant's residence without consent where the parties do not share the same residence; or any other controlling or abusive behavior towards a complainant, where such conduct harms or may cause imminent harm to the safety, health or well-being of the complainant; and deprivation.

The Criminal Law of Lagos State  defines sexual assault as sexually touching (by any part of the body or with anything else) another person without consent.^[8]

VAPPA  defines the following:

Sexual abuse

Any conduct that violates, humiliates or degrades the sexual integrity of any person

Spousal battery

The intentional and unlawful use of force or violence upon a person, including unlawful touching, beating or striking of another person against his or her will with the intention of causing bodily harm to that person

Abandonment of women, children and other persons

Deliberately leaving women, children and other persons, under the perpetrators' care, destitute and without any means of subsistence

Forced isolation from family and friends

Includes preventing a person from leaving the home or having contact with family, friends or the outside community

Harmful transitional practices

All traditional behavior, attitudes or practices, which negatively affect the fundamental rights of women, girls or any person and include harmful widowhood practices, denial of inheritance or succession rights, female genital mutilation or female circumcision, forced marriage and forced isolation from family and friends

Violence in the private sphere

Any act or attempted act perpetrated by a member of the family, neighbor or member of a community that causes or may cause any person physical, sexual, psychological, verbal, emotional or economic harm