Follow Us on Google
- Students narrated how uncles, father raped, abused them
From Olanrewaju Lawal, Birnin Kebbi
The ActionAid Nigeria (AAN) in collaborations with 15 partners in Kebbi State including NANA Girls and Women Initiative have reached out to over 35,000 women and girls through various interventions on issues relating to Gender Based Violence (GBV) Sexual Right and Reproductive Health and Women Political and Leadership, among others.
The AAN Project Coordinator, Noro Bature, stated this while speaking during review of the SRGBV safe guarding strategy implementation and scaling up to an additional girl’s secondary’, organized for female students and stakeholders in Birnin Kebbi, as part of activism against all sort of violence against women in the state.
Bature, who had highlighted the activities of AAN, explained that it is being funded by the Global Affairs Canada which are designed to eradicate all social injustice against women and girls.
According to her, “ActionAid Nigeria (AAN), in collaboration with 15 partners in Kebbi State through its project; Women’s Voice and Leadership Nigeria (WVL-N) project funded by Global Affairs Canada has reached over 35,000 women and girls in Kebbi State through intervention relating to Women Economic Empowerment, Sexual and Gender Based Violence, Sexual Right and Reproductive Health and Women Political and Leadership participation.
“The WVL-N project works with State actors, schools, MDAs, community, and religious leaders to ensure that issues concerning women and girls are captured and appropriate laws and policies are put in place to cub this menace.
“The Women’s Voice and Leadership Nigeria (WVL – Nigeria) project is a five-year project that is funded by Global Affairs Canada. The project is building the capacities and supporting activities of Local and National Women’s Rights Organisations and movements who seek to empower women and girls, advance the protection of women and girls’ rights, and achieve gender equality in Nigeria.
“Through this project, ActionAid Nigeria has re-defined the narratives of Donor funding by establishing partnerships with over 100 women’s rights organizations who have the privilege of accessing funds which allows them the flexibility of implementing their respective core mandates as women-focused organizations”.
Bature, who applauded the State Government for passing laws on GBV, said that,the laws would reduced challenges facing by women and girls.
“This intervention is designed to respond to the challenges faced by Local Women’s Rights Organizations in Nigeria through provision of multiple layers of funding and targeted/tailored capacity building. This is done using participatory learning techniques to empower women and their collectives, and girls to challenge deep seated oppressive cultural practices and violence against them in communities, and at the local and state government levels; engage in economic activities and participate in decision making spaces and processes; build solidarity and movement and better able to demand accountability from duty bearers at all levels through campaigns.”
She added that the project is implemented in seven states such as Bauchi, Kebbi, Kwara, Enugu, Cross River, Lagos and FCT).
Earlier, Dr Fatimah L Adamu,a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Sociology,Usmanu Dan Fodiyo University Sokoto,Nigeria, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NANA Women & Girls Empowerment Initiative,said the purpose of gathering the female students and stakeholders is to scaling up what they have done for other female students in many schools.
While reading out few ordeals, personally forwarded by females students to the NGO, Dr Adamu disclosed that many female students have been raped,molested by their own uncles, father’s and brothers, seeking for how to overcome the challenges.
According to her,”questions asked by the students in Sokoto and Kebbi States are, “what if a student reports a teacher about molestation ,the school Head denied it and said the teacher will not do such a thing. What should I do? Why is it that some teachers use to disturb/ molest us in schools? What can we do?
“What if it is your father that raped you. What will they do to him? One of my mother brothers, that’s is my uncle use to sneak into my room in the night, touching me and try to rape me,but I haven’t told anyone about it. Please, advise me on how to go about it?
“One of the students also wrote that, “I was raped,I don’t know what to do, and I don’t tell my parent about it. There are some students that their parents don’t have money to give their children for school resumption, because of that,some of us use to give ourselves out in exchange for food,” she quoted them.
While counseling the female students, Mr Ahmad Abubakar Dakingari,from Kebbi State Ministry of Women Affairs, advised to always seeks for help in all the Guidance and Counseling units in their schools.
The Deputy Director, Education Resource Centre, Ministry of Education, Kebbi State, Muhammed Sani Kete, urged the female students to stop seeking for assistance outside the school premises stressed that must of the abused and molestations occured outside the schools.
