Abuja – A woman activist, Mrs Joy Ezeilo, has advocated a comprehensive and uniform law that will protect women and girls from all forms of violence at all levels of governance across Nigeria.
Ezeilo, the Founder of Women Aid Collective, an NGO, made the call in Abuja on Wednesday while speaking to newsmen on the sideline of an event to mark the 2015 International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
The activist stressed the need for a unified action against gender-based violence, describing it as “a societal problem”.
“Every part of Nigeria is affected by violence, and when you look at the issue of sexual violence, it is an epidemic; we have to really confront the reality.
“It is a life-long trauma and results in cumulative breaches of women’s and girls’ rights; we have to take action and we need laws.
“We do not have a national law that is comprehensive and is of general application throughout the federation of Nigeria.
“In FCT, for the first time, we have Violence Against Persons Prohibition Bill and it is the first to comprehensively criminalise five major categories of violence i.e. physical violence, psychological violence, sexual violence, economic violence and harmful traditional practices.
“We need to make sure we have laws to protect women wherever they are located in Nigeria.
“The bill has a lot of innovation; for the first time it criminalises stalking, it introduces register of convicted sexual offenders. These are important so we know people violating our girls.”
Ezeilo also emphasised on the need for government to adequately invest in the provision of services for victims of gender-based violence which she noted were currently inadequate.
She said that government’s contributions would complement the efforts of non-governmental and faith-based organisations in fighting against violence.
“Services are so inadequate that most victims of gender-based violence do not know where to go for help.
“Funding for service provision is not easy to come by and this is a social service that government is supposed to provide for.
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“Ministry of Women Affairs receives the least allocation annually, so how can it cater to more than 80 million Nigerian women and girls?
“We can use more funds to tackle the issues of maternal mortality, unwanted rapes and incest that lead to unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions, empower young girls and women.
“This will lead to sustainable development,” she stated.
Contributing, the Director, MacArthur Foundation, Mr Kole Shettima, urged the three tiers of government to enforce extant laws on women and girls’ abuses.
“Legislation is critical but it is only one step in the long journey we have to make because law makes sense only when it really affects the daily lives of people.
“The challenge is implementation and this can also be done by the legislature backing these laws with resources to ensure implementation,” he said.
Shettima also called for the introduction of gender programmes in schools, so as to educate the younger ones on gender-based violence.
“Working with younger people especially at the level of secondary education to enable them to develop new ideas, values and cultures is one of the things we should do as a society.
“It is important to catch young people and get them involved in such programmes because people learn behaviours through socialisation and we can help them unlearn what they have learnt.
“One of the ways to do that is to start activities or projects that intend to make them the next generation of champions to promote gender rights in Nigeria.”
The United Nations General Assembly designated November 25 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
The event for 2015 has as its theme “Breaking the Culture of Silence, Uniting to End Violence against Women”.
Its sub themes include 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence Campaign to galvanise action to end violence against women and girls around the world. (NAN)