Nigeria, March 25 -- The Nigerian society has failed both the male and female child. Women and girls in Ozoro, Delta State, were recently groped, surrounded, and violated in broad daylight by crowds of laughing men. More than 500 women's groups have demanded arrests; the Nigerian Bar Association has issued statements; yet the response to this is still being debated and diluted.

The mass assault was coordinated enough to feel permitted, and that raises the harder question: How many incidents of violent assault against women do we have to experience before we see it as a failure that Nigeria has refused to confront? A societal, cultural, and institutional failure. What kind of society produces men who view women in public spaces as being a...