The United Nations Children Fund, UNICEF, says one in four Nigerian girls has experienced either domestic or sexual violence. It urged Media Professional to have a strategic partnership on issues surrounding women and girls.
The Chief Child Protection Officer, UNICEF, Mr. Ibrahim Sesay gave the figure at a Four Day Media Dialogue on Ethical Reporting and Advocacy to Eliminate Violence Against Women and Girls in the FCT, organised by Spotlight Initiative Nigeria,
“The voice of media is powerful but it has to be ethical in nature, putting the privacy of survival to consideration. We must not expose the images of survival that could embarrass or re victimise them,” Mr. Sesay said.
He also said that the United Nations has committed some funds globally to mitigate issues of violence against women and girls.
The UNICEF Communications Specialist, Dr. Geoffrey Njoku urged media professional to use their tools to eliminate violence against women and children in Nigeria.
He noted that with consistent media advocacy, the menace of gender based violence would be drastically reduced.
In her remarks, UNICEF’s Child Protection Officer, Mrs. Tochi Odele, said that ”violence against women and girls usually occur in trusted environments.”
According to her, such offences are perpetrated by trusted individuals who sometimes are mostly family members, caregivers and people who the society hold in very high esteem.
“It is important to note that violence is rarely an isolated case and the majority of children experience violence in their homes and familiar environments,” Odele said.
She also said that most times, people do not believe the stories of survivors of gender or sexual-based violence.
Mrs. Odele said the non-ratification of the Child Right Acts, by 13 states out of 36 states in Nigeria, has made violence against girls worse.
She stressed that women and girls with disabilities are twice as likely to experience violence of any form.
With the increasing cases of sexual and gender-based violence in Nigeria, a social worker and Desk Officer, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Sexual and Gender-based Violence Response Team, Ngozi Ike, decried lack of special courts for the trial cases of sexual and gender-based violence in Nigeria.
She said that having Special courts across the country would help speed up the process of justice delivery on cases of sexual and gender-based violence.
According to her, ”there are 444 cases of sexual offences in the Federal Capital Territory but there has been only one conviction this year, which is not good enough.”
”There is therefore the need for the establishment of Special courts to hasten trial of such cases.
“We lack special courts in Nigeria to hear such delicate cases. When you take these cases to the regular courts, they linger for a long period of time and this is not good at all. If we can push for the establishment of Special courts that will preside over sexual and domestic violence cases, it will give long way in according justice to survivors. We did it during the outbreak office the Covid-19 pandemic and within a short period of time, mobile courts were set up to try violators of the Covid-19 guidelines and we can do it for this purpose too,” Mrs Ike said.
Speakers at the meeting lamented the slow pace of trials and convictions of suspected sex offenders by the Judicial officers in Nigeria.
This, they said has stalled the progress of eliminating Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) cases and most offender are not being sanctioned to serve as deterrent to others.
Mercy Chukwudiebere
