- Wants media to set agenda for GBV
From Sola Ojo, Kaduna
Save the Children International (SCI) has trained civil society organisations, Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) service providers, relevant ministries, departments, and agencies of government to address Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and Gender Responsive Social Protection (GRSP) issues in Kaduna, Kano, and Jigawa States.
The organisation also urged the Nigeria media organisations and civil society to set an agenda for GBV by way of policy coherence whereby all the relevant ministries, departments, and agencies of government begin to work as a system such that when a GBV case is established the concern desks act swiftly in addressing such seamlessly.
According to the United Nations, about 35 percent of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence; globally, seven percent of women have been sexually assaulted by someone other than a partner and as many as 38 percent of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner.
It is important to clarify that men and boys also suffer some of this violence though many of them don’t speak out like women and girls do thereby making data and statistics difficult to come by.
Examples of GBV include but are not limited to sexual exploitation, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, psychological violence, physical violence, socio-economic violence, harmful cultural practices, cyberstalking, revenge porn, and doxing.
Failure to address these issues also entails a significant cost for the future because studies have shown that children growing up with violence are more likely to become survivors or perpetrators of violence sooner or later in life.
A Social Protection Specialist, SCI, Kaduna field office, Mr. Victor Ogaranduku harped on the need for data, information, and social protection programmes that will address GBV in an inclusive manner as well as finance and institutional arrangement and partnership to address and not aggravate GBV.
“Civil society and development partners have a responsibility in helping communities to know where to get what as far as GBV is concerned”, he said.
He maintained that Social protection is not for the poor alone because all humans are vulnerable.
He observed for example, health expenditures like cancer, kidney, and liver among others can be so devastating to the extent of making the affected person expend all his resources in trying to get a solution, especially in developing and underdeveloped worlds where people have to pay heavily for their health needs.
To the participants in this three-day training held in Kano from November 20-22, 2023, there is a need to overhaul GBV to stop the trend in society, and government officials, civil society groups, and development partners must come together to bring the issues to the front burner and at the same time empower locals to speak for themselves.
One of the identified ways to get the job done is to understand what religious books say about violence against one another, what the relevant GBV laws say, and what is the reality on the ground and strike the balance by leveraging social protection programmes and interventions.
The training was a part of the implementation of the Expanding Social Protection for Inclusive Development (ESPID) a UKaid Funded programme under the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) providing technical support for the strengthening of social protection in Nigeria.