Disturbing social media videos have revealed four young men being beaten and degraded by a mob in the Nigerian city of Benin, highlighting the social impact of discriminatory and dehumanising laws that criminalise same-sex intimacy. It is alleged that the men were targeted after reportedly being caught engaging in sexual activity, which could see them facing 14 years in prison. The videos, posted online around 16 November, show the four men paraded through the streets in their underwear while onlookers jeer and record the incident. In one clip, the mob is seen taking the law into their own hands and holding the men down and beating them one by one with a large stick, eliciting screams of pain.