Project Alert recently held a two-day sensitisation workshop how to eliminate violence against women and girls. GBOYEGA ALAKA reports.
It was a convention of sort for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), rights activists and stakeholders in the gender-based violence battle, including the police and government agencies in Lagos, recently, as they all gathered at the Best Western Starfire Hotel, in Ikeja, Lagos, to deliberate and chart ways forward in the fight against violence on women and girls.
The 2-day workshop tagged: The Spotlight Initiative Project, is a programme of the European Union and the United Nations, focused on eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls globally, and organised by Project Alert on Violence Against Women and Girls.
According to Executive Director, Project Alert, Josephine Effah-Chukwuma, The Spotlight Initiative is designed to “focus attention,” as well as “support concrete measures to end violence in our communities, states and nation;” giving “prominence to prevention, protection and provision of services, alongside broader efforts to ensure women’s empowerment.”
Although aimed at all forms of violence against women, the project focused particularly on domestic violence, sexual and gender-based violence and harmful traditional practices. It also aimed to “support a Nigeria, where all women and girls, particularly the most vulnerable, live a life free from violence and harmful practices.
Expatiating further, Effah-Chukwuma listed the Spotlight Intervention Pillars to include: Laws and Policies (to prevent and address violence, discrimination and impunity); Institutions (to strengthen national and regional institutions); and Prevention (to promote social norms and attitudes that help prevent the scorge).
Activities of the two-day event therefore focused on “Capacity Building for Girls and Women CSOs/Rights Groups on referral Services for Victims of SGBV.”
Aside Effah-Chukwuma, who led Day-1 of the workshop, keynote speakers included Titilola Vivour-Adeniyi, Coordinator, Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team (DSVRT), who presented the paper, ‘A Coordinated Approach to Handling & Responding to Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Lagos State; Itoro Eze-Anaba, Managing Partner, Partnership for Justice and Founder, Mirabel Centre, who spoke on ‘Sexual Violence in Nigeria: Prevalence and Challenges; and Ibegwam Nonso of the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy & Development (Centre LSD), who focused on ‘The Role of Boys’ in the menace and how and why it has festered.
Vivour-Adeniyi said the DSVRT team was “set up to improve upon the level of cooperation and collaboration among the professionals and other stakeholders working to bring an end to Sexual and Gender-based Violence in the state.
She said the team is to provide coordinated response to issues of sexual and gender-based violence crimes, eradicate the stigma associated with reporting sexual and gender-based violence, restore public confidence in the legal system by ensuring that justice is served; ensure that the public is fully aware of the consequences of SGBV and ultimately, prevent the occurrence of SGBV in the state as whole.
Vivour-Adeniyi listed the services provided by the team to include, medical assistance, legal assistance, empowerment and emergency assistance.
Stressing on how close to home the danger of domestic and sexual violence has become, Eze-Anaba said 93 per cent of sexual violence perpetrators are known to the victims under the age of 18.
These perpetrators, she said, may be older siblings, playmates, family members, teachers, coaches, instructors, caretakers or parent of another child, taking advantage, usually of a child’s vulnerability, to manipulate, coerce and intimidate them into silence. Usually, these are people in position of trust, or authority.
She also submitted that 70 per cent of abused boys are by pastors; and persons with disabilities are principally abused by their caregivers. She said the menace is so bad that keeping a child indoors may not be a solution; as the danger literally lies right in the house.
Eze-Anaba gave an illustration of a father friend who regularly comes to visit a family, routinely goes upstairs to rape the daughter on the pretext of greeting his ‘daughter’ and comes down to play with the parents as if nothing had happened.
In another instance, she described the scenario of a male friend of a son of the house, who serially raped the female siblings, all on the pretext of coming to visit – until the younger victim was driven to attempting suicide.
She also cast a shadow on the culture of silence, which she said has helped these abuses to fester, when she narrated the story of a motherly figure, who, on seeing a girl walking suspiciously as she came out of some boys’ room in a tenement house, chose to keep quiet. “A few weeks later, it was her daughter’s turn, and she was now lamenting and regretting not speaking up that one time,” she said.
A participant, Dr. Adebukola Adebayo, Chairman, Joint National Association of Persons Living With Disabilities, JONAPWD, expressed his delight at Project Alert and the sponsors of The Spotlight Initiative.
He said people living with disabilities have their rights and it is the responsibility of the community to protect and preserve these rights.
In the opinion of visually impaired Adebayo, “Men should lead the campaign against domestic and sexual violence, stressing that there is no man that lives that does not come of a woman.
“Be the voice; lead in the fight; preach justice and equity from the home-front,” he admonished.
He also said girls with disabilities are most vulnerable; stressing that “We want the able to begin to speak for the disable.”
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