After 16 years of Nigeria’s adoption of the Child Rights Act (CRA), the country has achieved less than 20 percent of its implementation, while the prevalence of violence against women and girls is still on the rise, James Ibor, a human rights activist, says.
According to Ibor, statistics show that one in four girls and 10 per cent of boys reported to have suffered sexual violence in Nigeria. Of the children who reported violence, less than five out of 100 receive support.
Despite these alarming statistics, Ibor said it was sad that the implementation of laws to protect women and girls is poo. He spoke while addressing the media at a two-day workshop held in Ibadan on Monday.
The workshop was organised by the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative is a global partnership between the United Nations(UN) and the European Union (EU) to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls and all harmful practices in support of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development.
These collaboration seeks to focus on legislation policy framework, building institutions , prevention efforts and particularly addressing root causes of gender-based violence and harmful practices; and also ensuring access to inclusive , timely, and affordable, quality service.
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Meanwhile based on consultation on prevalence of violence, as well as data management, the programme focuses on five states across Nigeria: Lagos, Adamawa, Sokoto, Cross-River and Ebonyi, plus the FCT, says the agency.
Violence against women and girls is against the law and survivors do not usually receive full legal support, as they may prefer to stay in abusive relationships than leave to face the ridicule of living outside relationships and/ or wedlock.
Women and girls subjected to violence are unwilling to lodge formal complaints due to a lack of trust in the police force and stigmatisation in the society
“Nigeria has positive legislations that support the protection of women and children. For instance, we have the Violence Against Person Prohibition Act (VAPP) Act, but the implementation is less than five per cent because we still have cases of violence being reported but little or nothing is done about them,” said Ibor.
Nigeria ratified the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1985 but international treaties can only go into effect when parliament has put in place a corresponding domesticated law thereby limiting the international treaties to disuse.
Also speaking, a Child Protection Specialist, at UNICEF, Olasunbo Odebode, said there was a need to sensitise the public on the need to end violence against women and girls.
“The discrimination and stigmatisation of survival must stop,” said, adding that people must realise that they should not keep quiet because keeping quiet will make the perpetrators to continue,” she said.
Odebode said that the government needs to create an enabling environment so that the laws already in place are implemented and acted upon.
Speaking on what international donors were doing to tackle the issue of violence against women and girls in Nigeria, Odebode said that the EU-UN doled out $40 million to support the initiative for four years in Nigeria.
To achieve this goal, the child protection Specialist said six comprehensive approaches were developed and they are legislation and policy framework, institution capacity building, prevention and social norms, delivery of quality services by health professionals, data availability and capacities, and supporting the woman movement.
She further said that there was a need to holistically tackle and target ending violence against women and girls in the country.
“We need to create sensitization in the minds of people and the society at large and also to disabuse the mind of people against discrimination and stigmatisation,” Odebode said.
