Bisina Somto, PBA Journalism Mentee
With the rising cases of Sexual and Gender-based Violence and other forms of abuses in society, a rights advocacy group, Women’s Rights and Health Project (WRAHP) has reiterated the need for victims to report cases of abuse to appropriate authorities rather keeping silent and letting the perpetrators go free.
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The call was made on Wednesday, September 7, 2022 at the close of a 12 months sensitisation project organised by WRAHP in partnership with British Council, funded by the European Union.
The project tagged, “Building Capacity of Civil Society Organisation,” was formed to promote uptake of justice-related social services for abuse victims in Ojo and Oshodi-Isolo Local Government Areas of Lagos State.
The project which began in August 2021, was targeted at training Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to effectively respond and refer incidents of abuse in their various communities. WRAHP has developed the capacities of the CSOs with particular attention to the vulnerable people in the society on issues of gender-based violence, promotion of women’s right and instilling leadership abilities in community women and girls.
Speaking during the close of the programme, the Executive Director WRAHP, Mrs Bose ironsi highlighted the challenges the group faced in the course of implementing the project.
She said “one of the major challenges we faced in executing this project, was the constant interference of the community. While most community leaders and members were accepting this initiative, others were not. There were many cases of victims or parent of victims retracting their reports on the basis that the predators were close members of the family or ‘sons of the soil.’
She further stressed on the importance of religious bodies in curbing cases of abuse.
She said “It takes a whole village to train and protect a child, and Pastors and Imams play major role in instilling values in children. As role models, when a case of abuse is brought to your attention, report to the right authorities,” Bose told CSO activists who gathered at the workshop.
Founder/CEO of Bella of Bella Foundation for Child and Maternity Care, Bella Akhagba, also noted, lack of funds as on of the challenges that CSOs face in delivering their social services.
WRAHP conducted the activities that yielded great success including the mapping of 40 CSOs, training of 38 representatives of 20 CSOs and most importantly rescuing 70 victims of abuse.
