In order to stem the incessant rise of domestic and sexual violence in local communities across states in Nigeria, a non-governmental organization Youth Alive Foundation with support from Commonwealth has trained members of CSOs and NGOs, their cluster partners to advocate for domestication of Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act.
The training which is aimed at creating a safe community for women and girls, is expected to have ripple effects on the participants and their organizations, to create a proper awareness on all forms of gender-based violence in their local communities.
According to the Programme Officer, Lagos state office Youth Alive Foundation, Feyikemi Fabiyi-Omoniyi, the organization is currently working on a SAVE project for women and girls, advocating for domestication of VAP laws in Five states in the country; FCT (Abuja), Lagos, Akwa Ibom, Imo and Cross River.
“We are currently working on SAVE project, SAVE means Safeguarding Against Violence and Exploitation and presently we are training our cluster partners, CSO and NGOs that are working together with us on GBV, it’s a step-down training, we train them so that when they get to their offices they will train their staffs and to the community. The objective of the training is to advocate for the domestication of VAP law.
“In Lagos State, Domestic and sexual violence law has already came into existence in September 2021, presently we are advocating to the Lagos State government to continue working on how different form of violence can be minimal if not eradicated completely, we are pushing for women and girls to have a safe place to live.” she added.
She noted that the Organization is also working with the State’s Ministry of Education, in order to gain access to schools across the states for proper sensitization against all forms of violence.
Meanwhile, the Youth Alive Foundation Southwest Programme Coordinator, Chamberline Etukudor said the aim of the training is to improve the capacity of the trainees on understanding the legal frameworks in the country and Lagos state in particular as far as gender base violence is concerned.
“We are encouraging our SAVE cluster partners to take up the issue of gender-based violence in Lagos state and the idea around this training is to ensure that we improve their capacity in understanding the legal frameworks in the country and Lagos state in particular, it also aimed at ensuring that we improve their capacity on advocacy to do effective public awareness for GBV in the state and ensuring a collective action towards dealing with the issues of GBV in Lagos state”.
“We expect every participant to take the training back to their organization and replicate the training so as to share the knowledge gained with their members and community in particular,” he affirmed.
Also, one of the participants, Patricia Okosodo noted that the training is an eye opener to various laws governing gender base violence in Nigeria and Lagos state in particular.
Okosodo Insists that the sensitization programme should be a continuous event in their various Local government and CDAs in order to eradicate the menace in the state and the country at large.
