Create Multiple Reporting Channels for Survivors of Violence – Gender Advocate

Faith Nwadishi, Gender Advocate

By: Prudence Okonna

To mitigate the issues of gender-based violence and encourage reportage by affected persons in the FCT, Gender Advocates have called for the creation of multiple reporting channels for survivors.

This was the submission of a gender advocate during an expert validation meeting organized by the Abuja Original Inhabitants Youth Empowerment Organisation (AOIYEO) to validate its charter of demand on varying focus subjects.

The Executive Director, Center for Transparency and Advocacy, CTA, Nwadishi Faith, while making her submission emphasized that putting rapid response mechanisms and designing a template that works for different women on issues of violence will encourage them to speak up when they experience abuse.

Her words: ‘’When you are dealing with issues around GBV, you need to have a design template that works for women. Categorise the women and what works for each group by creating multiple reporting channels and putting rapid response mechanisms’’.

The information received during the strategy meetings across the six Area Councils, as contained in the document presented by AOIYEO, revealed that a major challenge faced by victims of GVB is the distance between their communities and the designated office responsible for handling such cases; adding, in Nigeria, statistics show that violence against women increased sporadically to 297% since the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the project manager AOIYEO, Bitrus Lawrence, the essence of the validation meeting is to fashion out demands from the raw data generated from the scoping and strategy meeting held across the six Area Councils in the FCT.

Lawrence emphasized that AOIYEO was only a vehicle used to collect information from the communities and therefore, understands first-hand what the plights of women in the rural anreas are.

Other focus subjects raised at the validation meeting include economy, culture, politics/governance, environment, and health where experts that cut across different fields of endeavour; from Civil Society Organisations, private individuals, and government agencies fashioned out workable plans from the demands of the original inhabitants in the FCT.