ABEOKUTA – Worried by increasing rate of girl-child molestation, sexual assault against women and Gender-based violence, the Ford Foundation and Centre for Women’s Health and Information (CEWHIN) have called on community, religious, and traditional leaders in Ogun State to join hands in preventing continued perennial gender-based violence, particularly against women, girls, and children.
The Centre for Women’s Health and Information (CEWHIN) made the call on Tuesday during a town hall meeting with NGOs, community leaders, religious organizations, security agencies and Persons with Disabilities held in Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State.
Participants at the prevention campaign with the theme “Partnership for Enhanced VAWG prevention among religious and traditional stakeholders in Ogun and Osun state decried the dastardly act of violence against male and female children and people living with disabilities.
They blamed parental carelessness, lack of fear of God, poor enforcement of punitive measure against offenders, lost of love as well as moral decadence as fundamental cause of Gender-based violence, adding that law should be strictly adhere to without recourse.
Highlighting the prevention measures, they encouraged parents to desist from the tradition of silence by parents of survivors as a means to prevent name-calling or family dissaray.
The immediate past Amira, Federation of Muslim Women’s Associations in Nigeria (FOMWAN), Ogun State chapter, Alhaja Rabiu Kudirat Yeni attributed lack of discipline among factors contributing to the rising GBV and immorality in the society.
Alhaja Rabiu enjoined parents to instill moral value and fear of God and inculcate societal values in the youth from kindred as a way of preventing the menace in our society.
“I want people to go back home to enlighten our people on the causes and prevention of GBV, how we can prevent gender based violence among our women and girls, and it is very paramount that we go back home and disseminate the information that we have acquired here so as to prevent such occurrence in our neighborhood.
“So, we have to go back to our Creator, to go back to the Holy books and scriptures, to learn what the Lord has asked us to do and go against what He has forbidden. So, we also need to go back to our tradition and inculcate the good norms and culture, the values in our community to our young ones, so that they can become a full fledged, responsive and responsible citizen.”
On his own part, the Ogun State Secretary, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Rev. Sunday Adesanya blamed the menace of gender-based violence on the carelessness of parents, growing immortality among youths, tradition of silence, abuse of power by political office holders, lack of fear of God, and lack of strict punishment against perpetrators of gender-based violence.
He recommended strict punishment for the perpetrators without tempering justice with mercy.
He also called on the parents to speak out and desist from shielding family or community members caught abusing female gender and allow the law to take its full cause whenever such an occurrence happens.
He also encouraged parents to inculcate moral habits and fear of God in their children while also calling on religious leaders to desist from using suvivors as reference point during their sermons in churches or Mosques.
“The position of CAN in ensuring that such practices are no longer or are minimized in our society, if not completely eradicated. But we won’t wait to enhance the processes. Whatever we can do in meetings, sensitize the people or branches of CAN. As I’ve told them, this program today must not be limited here. The organizers should take it to social media. We need things like this. They are for you to see, to read, to experience. It’s not those people that are there and all sort of programs that are taking them away from the normal norms of the I mean, the rules and regulation of the society. If we have programs like this on the social media to go a long way to enhance the knowledge, the awareness, and then shape the character for our youth, and then definitely, we have to balance the society.
Also speaking, the representative of the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN), Mr. Akinyemi Adeola Samuel blamed the rising cases of GBV on what he described as imitation of “civil world,” submitting that community and religious engagement should be encouraged to prevent GBV.
He called for collective efforts by all stakeholders to speak against the phenomenon, stressing the need by parents to monitor their children’s social media engagement, tasking the government to regulate social media content for children.
The NYCN Vice Chairman also enjoined the government to set up a task force team that would curb the menace of indecent dressing in the society.
The representative of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) suggested that Civil societies and NGOs should take the campaign against GBV to primary and secondary schools while also encouraging them to educate children on their sex rights.
The Executive Director, Centre for Women’s Health and Information (CEWHIN), Mrs. Atinuke Odukoya said Gender-based violence is not acceptable but preventable if the right messages and actions are taken at the right time.
According to her, the town hall meeting was to give voice to the Gender-based violence survivors and sensitise relevant stakeholders on the need to prevent the menace from happening.
She said, “The major message is the fact that gender based violence is not acceptable and that it is preventable, that people need to begin to talk. Well, how do we prevent? We all talk about response, which is part of prevention, which is important in responding to when things have happened. But rather than wait till things have happened, why don’t we try and ensure that it doesn’t even happen at all?
“So, what we’re trying to do is to get people to begin to think is that, how do we make our own society, communities, local areas be safe, such that issues of gender based violence, whether physical, sexual, emotional, verbal, whatever form of GBV, that it does not occur within our settings.
“One of the things that we’ve seen is how we defend things that we’re used to. So oftentimes, we’re stuck in what the people were wearing, what the person said. But just to also show that those things are neither here nor there, and that’s why either male or female can be abused. Of course, research shows that more women and girls are abused, whether sexually, physically or whatever that has to do with power. But just because it can happen to either of the sexes, that’s part of why we should think through it and say, Okay, so why does it even happen? What can we do that can stop it? And I’m glad that some of the people that had spoken had talked about quite a number of things. How do our religious leaders, community leaders engage in this kind of issues?
“So our message is very simple, prevent gender based violence. What helps us to prevent it might be taken by different from space to space, but what we’re trying to do is to get the right people that people listen to. Religious leaders, for instance, when they tell their congregation to jump, people jump without asking questions. So can we be telling them the right things? For instance, God hates injustice. What is injustice? GBV is an injustice to humanity, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Meanwhile, representatives of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) have called on the Ogun state Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, to assent to the disability bill as a way of protecting people with special needs.
According to them, the society stigmatized against people with disabilities, thus taking advantage of their conditions without any form of punishment.
