The Programme Consultant, Dooshima Ageh of Nigeria COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Project, (CoPREP) in Benue State has stated that cases of Gender Based Violence, (GBV) will continue to rise until justice is served on perpetrators.
Ageh stated this at the weekend during the sensitization stakeholders meeting on Gender-Based Violence held in Makurdi and called on people to join forces against the menace.
The sensitization stakeholders meeting was organized by the Ministry of Health through its World Bank-supported project, Nigeria COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Project, (CoPREP).
Participants were drawn from traditional institutions and leaders of several communities and organizations in the state capital.
According to Ageh, “Even as people have become aware and are willing to report their cases, justice has not been served on the reported cases as only two convictions were recorded last year, 2023, on the number of cases being treated in the state.
She said the meeting became necessary to engage the stakeholders on GBV, especially the traditional institutions as they are the ones to permit the implementation of the programme at the grassroots.
She explained that “The project, CoPREP, was conceived as an intervention when Covid started and we started noticing that cases of GBV were increasing in the state and across the world.
“So there was the need to have a gender component to the intervention in COVID-19 to address the issues of GBV that were taking place in our communities.”
The program manager noted that cases of GBV have continued unabated in the communities despite a lot of awareness of the issue.
So this project is important as it goes out to mobilize actors and stakeholders that are intervening on GBV in the LGAs,” she said.
Expressing concerns about the fate of the survivors and their families as well as the reaction of society towards GBV, Ageh said “I am worried that when GBV cases happen, people take it as normal or when it is a child, they say he or she would overcome it. But there are psychological consequences.”
She said the danger to women is that GBV has been linked to life fatalities such as death, and long-time life-threatening crises like childbirth or fertility among other silent killers of women who are survivors.
She also noted that GBV leads to revengeful actions on the side of survivors where some vow to get back at society.
“So society must not take cases of GBV lightly. It’s a trend we shouldn’t take for granted. It is a problem that everyone in the society must join hands to address,” Mrs Ager counsels
Resource persons, Chile Tersoo, and Osasu Edobor, speaking on Environmental Safeguard for the GBV Project and Gender Action Plan, Basics, Assessment and Mitigating GBV, urged traditional rulers and community leaders to set up structures to address matters relating to GBV in their communities.
In their respective contributions, stakeholders who spoke at the event appreciated the World Bank, the Ministry of Health and the State Ministry of Women Affairs for the programme and pledged their commitment to the programme to enable its full implementation and success in the state.
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