In Bauchi state, a non-governmental organisation in conjunction with the state Ministry of Women and Child Development and United Nations are working round the clock to eradicate gender-based violence in all its ramifications. NAJOB SANI reports.
For many years, there existed some traditions in Nigeria especially in rural areas that have continued to endanger the women-folk. Such traditions and cultures impede the development of women physically, educationally, socially and economically.
In some places, girls are still denied access to education, get married too early even as they are at times subjected to physical violence.
In the urban areas and many cities, women, particularly the girls, in recent times, have been facing sexual abuses, assaults and rapes which affect their health and well-being. The situation has become a source of concern to authorities and civil society organisations who have been advocating an end to the menace.
Worried by these situations and as part of measures to curtail the gender-based violence and some harmful traditions that hamper women development, the Bauchi State Ministry of Women Affairs and Child Development in collaboration with a non-governmental organisation (NGO) ‘Ikra Foundation for Women And Youth Development (IFWYD) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with support from the government of Canada set up Gender-Based Violence Response and Referral Networks in five local government areas of the state.
The Gender Based Violence Response and Referral Networks which were inaugurated at Kirfi, Tafawa Balewa, Itas/Gadau, Ningi and Gamawa local government areas comprise representatives of women groups, youth organisations, security agents, legal assistants and community leaders.
Programme officer spells out role of the network
According to the programme officer of Ikra Foundation, Peace Yohanna, the role of the networks is to sensitise their communities on gender-based violence and report cases to appropriate authorities like security agents and rush survivors to any hospital.
She opined that most of the gender-based violence cases are due to lack of proper education about the menace, thereby making the perpetrators to go free.
“With this committee, we believe that the team would go round, see what is happening within the community, report cases, refer the survivors to hospitals and ensure that the culprits are brought to book,” she explained.
Also speaking, the director of women affairs in the state Ministry of Women Affairs and Child Development, Fatima Abdullahi, said the network could help to curb the menace in the area.
She therefore appealed to the district heads of the local governments to enlighten their people against the practice of harmful traditions that impede the development of women.
She enumerated some of the harmful traditions to include child marriage that causes Vaginal Vestico Fistula (VVF), unprofessional vaginal surgery by traditional birth attendants, female genital mutilation, etc.
“In some villages, you would observe that girls are married off early when they are not ready to give birth. So during labour, they encounter problems such as VVF while in some places, women give birth in the hands of traditional birth attendants who use dirty razor blades to cut the women whose vaginas are too tight to bring out their infants. By so doing, such women contract diseases and also bleed badly. These are bad practices that should stop. More so, there are communities that conduct genital mutilations on girls which are harmful to them.
“Traditional rulers as highly influential people in their areas have pivotal roles to play to stop such harmful traditions and gender-based violence,” she stated.
UN rep charges team members
In her remarks, the representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Mrs Deborah Tabara, urged stakeholders to have strong and formidable teams that would be committed to tackling gender-based violence especially the one affecting women and girls.
According to her, women and girls particularly in the rural areas are more vulnerable to gender-based violence due to ignorance and harmful cultures, saying all hands should be on deck to address the menace.
Community involvement advocated
A resource person who delivered lectures to the traditional rulers and other stakeholders on the subject matter, Shamsiya Bello Isa, explained that the idea behind setting up the network in the areas was to make their works easier, noting that to achieve the goal of addressing gender-based violence, the communities must be involved.
She said that the network co-opted religious leaders and traditional rulers to help in the campaign against gender-based violence because of their influence.
“We are dividing them into four teams. The first team is safe and security and would entail the security personnel. They would be the ones to arrest perpetrators. The second team is health assistance who would be in charge of anything that comes with injury and sexually-transmitted diseases.
“Health personnel would be in the team so that they can help if there is any issue of injury or STD.
“The third teams are paralegals who would be in charge of prosecuting the perpetrators and the fourth is psycho-social assistance team that gives advice to victims,” she stated.
She noted that members of the networks are to be giving monthly reports to them.
Shamsiya said the response teams should be guided by some principles including providing safety to victims of gender-based violence, no discrimination against victims, irrespective of their religions or tribes, ensuring confidentiality of the victims so that they would not be exposed to public and face any stigma.
Scope of the response team
Commenting on the impacts of the networks, the founder of Ikra Foundation, Barrister Amina Garuba, explained that after the establishment of the response teams, over 70 cases of various forms of gender-based violence have been reported in Ningi and Gamawa local governments since their inauguration.
“A notorious case which was to be manipulated to get the culprit off the hook, but due to the timely response and referral of the Ningi Gender-Based Violence Response and Referral Network, Ikra Foundation and intervention by the first lady of Bauchi state, the case is now scheduled for trial at the High Court and the culprit is remanded at the Correctional Centre Bauchi,” she stated.
Barrister Garuba, who explained that in the past, rape law was lenient, pointed out that in the Bauchi state laws, even insertion of fingers into the private part of women without their consent is termed as rape and punishable under Section 10 (2) of the 2017 Bauchi State Law on Kidnapping, Theft of Cattle, Rape and other related offences.
“A five year old girl was raped by a classroom teacher, Jamaludden Zakariyya of Yadagungume primary school, Sama Ward in Ningi local government.
“The case was reported to the Gender-Based Violence Response and Referral Network. The Network went to the town and the representative of the district head confirmed the case. It was then reported to the police in Burra district of Ningi local government of the state.
“The culprit had carried out same act with minors in the school in the past and gotten away with it,” she alleged.
“To our surprise, the girl’s father has said he has forgiven the culprit as he has been told at the police station that there is no law that would act on the culprit and his daughter would only be disgraced by the court. Ikra Foundation, women groups are working on this case now,” she stated.
The district heads of villages visited by the NGOs and the Ministry of Women Affairs pledged to actively participate in the fight against gender-based violence and harmful traditions in their places.
They also promised to provide shelters to the survivors of violence and offices for the response networks.
