From Jude Owuamanam, Jos
Women Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA) has called for the full implementation of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) and and the Gender Equal Opportunity (GEO) laws in Plateau State.
The group also called for the setting up of the accompanying Sexual Assault Response centre (SARc).
Former Governor Simon lalong has in 2022 signed the VAPP bill into law and subsequently gazetted it. Over 34 states of the federation had domesticated the lawi.
Programme Officer of WRAPA, Mrs. Jummai Madaki, who made the call at a one-day sensitisation programme on violence against women and other vulnerable groups in Jos on Tuesday, expressed displeasure that since bill was muted and signed into by former Governor Simon Lalong, and subsequently gazetted, it was yet to see the light of the day.
She wondered why such an important law should take such a long time to implement.
Madaki said that the non-implementation of the law was based partly on ignorance that only women would be the beneficiary of the law, stressing that even men are victims of abuse.
She said, “The purpose of the workshop is to engage multi stakeholders in an intergenerational dialogue that would include youth, women and girls, marginalised groups, leaders of faith and culture, civil society organisations and service providers engaged in the implementation of the VAPP and GEO laws to consolidate on improved access to prevention, protection and justice to address issues of gender based violence in Kaduna and Plateau states.
“We cannot be still talking about these important pieces of legislation for all these years if we are really serious about curbing violence against the vulnerable group in the society. This meeting is part of the sensitisation programme to draw awareness to this issue because unless we come together to talk about it, government may still remain mum about it, especially these days when there had been an escalation in cases of violence against women and other vulnerable groups.
“Make no mistake about it, boys and men also suffer from these menace because we’ve had cases where women chase their husbands out of their homes. We’ve equally had cases where mothers cover up for their husbands who molest their children. So these laws have all round effect”
Madaki also tasked the state government for not reaching the 35 per cent affirmation in the appointment of women into his cabine, adding, “The state government has recently made some appointments and we have not seen a reflection of the 35 per cent affirmation not to talk of our advocacy to upscale it to 40 per cent.
The gender rights advocate also called for the setting up of a SARC centre, to go alongside with the implementation of the gender laws, stressing that such centre would help in ameliorating the effect of violence on the victims.