It was on the backdrop of a decline in the number of reported Gender Violence Cases through its Gender Based Violence (GBV) application, that the Center for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) that engaged journalists in its project titled “Strengthening Citizens Response and Protection against Gender Based Violence in Kano, Nigeria”.
The program which is focused on contributing to the decline of GBV cases in the society as well as the creation of a safe and secure educational environment, is implemented with support from the Ford Foundation. Its overall objective is to achieve a safe society for women and girls, one which is free from gender violence and discrimination.
Daily News24 understands that CITAD utilizes evidence–based advocacy to successfully engage and mobilize various stakeholders to join together in addressing the problem of GBV in the society. Notably, the use of the CITAD GBV App to report incidences in privacy provides a safe space for young girls to report cases and threat as well as learn how to protect themselves and in the same vein, have an opportunity for personalized counselling to deal with the trauma.
- CITAD consults with CSOs on youths, women involvement in Politics
- Use social media for national development, unity CITAD Executive Director urges youths
As Sexual Harassment still remained the case with highest number of perpetrations, CITAD recorded a drop in the number of reported cases from 61 in September to 22 in October and 22 in November 2021 accordingly. Thus, other cases like wife battering and social media GBV had no reported cases in October a case of wife battering was reported in November.
Ms Zainab Aminu, the Gender Project Program Officer of CITAD while speaking, explained that in an effort to gather data of GBV not captured by monitors via the App, the National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria supplied CITAD with their data for the month which indicated that they received a total of 50 cases of child abuse for the month of November and also 75 cases of Sexual Gender-Based Violence which constitutes of 20 male and 55 females of age ranges between 0-30 years.
“This is to say that there are cases of GBV that are either under-reported or not captured by our monitors. Although the NHRC stated that most cases are reported by victims which prompts investigation as some cases are not publicly identified. We could deduce from that that unless victims speak out, some cases will be unidentified.” Ms Aminu said.
She recommended that the Kano State Government and House of Assembly domesticate the Child Rights Act and VAPP Act at the state level and if implemented, will contribute in curbing this menace. She added that the state government should not only adopt laws to protect women and girls, but also establish Referral Centers and Forensic Centers for victims.
As she charged the media to consistently use their platforms in creating awareness against GBV, she noted that communities are still reluctant to report cases of GBV. “We are not able to reach and cover the whole state. For this reason, we will like to appeal to parents, relatives and others to always report cases to the various to either directly to us or to other sister NGOs as well as to government agencies such as NAO or Hisbah.” She stressed.
“We cannot win the battle against it unless every perpetrator is brought to the books. Keeping silent is not protecting the victims who suffer while the perpetrators take this silence as a stamp of acceptability.” Ms Aminu concluded.
