By Justina Auta
Stakeholders have called for more funding and male participation in ending Gender Based Violence (GBV) and its harmful traditional practices affecting women and girls in the country.
They made the call at a news briefing in Abuja to commence the 2023 16 days of activism organised by a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Tabitha Cumi Foundation (TCF) on Friday.
The Executive Director, TCF, Mrs Tayo Erinle, said more funding, prevention and response interventions, as well as male involvement would reduce prevalence of GBV cases in the country.
Erinle added that through their Flashlight Actions on Girls Safety ( FLAGS), a UN Trust fund project, they had supported 750 marginalised adolescent girls through virtual case management on GBV.
“We call for increase financing of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Prevention and Response interventions, including the development of school code of conduct for both staff and students in schools.
” And across all the non-formal centres as well as allocation of specific resources linked to the achievement of the set outcomes.
” Government, Civil Society Organizations and the Private sector should scale up interventions for male engagement and involvement in GBV prevention and response,” she said.
According to her, through the FLAGS project, 30 safe spaces were created, 82 community outreaches in FCT, Nigeria and Nassarawa states.
She also stressed the need for more women to be empowered, girl-child education and advocacies by religious, cultural and political leaders end GBV, as well as effective punishment for GBV cases.
Funmi Kolawole, Gender Desk Officer, Nigeria Police Force, reiterated the commitment of the police, who were constantly trained on handling GBV cases to ensure survivors and victims gets justice.
” In FCT command there is no division that you will not meet someone specialised on GBV because we don’t want the perpetrator to continue.
” We want them to be punished and we equally want justice for the survivors.
We have gender officers, who attend to such cases that comes to the station, ” she said.
Also, Mrs Ijeoma Amigo from Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) department, National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), noted the challenges of out of court settlement, which affects prosecution of SGBV cases.
” In NAPTIP, we have so many challenges of prosecuting people, especially under Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV).
” Some people will do heinous crime against others but because they are poor and before it gets to NAPTIP they will go and meet them and offer as small as N50,000, they will forgive a crime as heinous as rape.
“But if everybody is sensitise and know that there is nothing bad about going to law enforcement and having the case go to court, ” she said.
Mr Olusegun Olurunfemi, representing Child’s Protection Network (CPN), stressed the need for more sensitisation and collaboration to end harmful traditional practices affecting women and children.
” There are some social norms within our communities that we need to do a way with like the killing of twins in 57 communities within the FCT still being practice.
” It is time for us to begin to see some of our norms that does not support what we are doing and it is a challenge for everyone of us,” he said.
News Agency of Nigeria reports that other activities organised by TCF to mark the 16 days of activism include community dialogue, sensitisation session, advocacies, rallies and social media campaign.
Edited by Isaac Aregbesola
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