By: Mayen Etim
KADUNA, North-West Nigeria – In its bid to support women and girls in protracted conflict areas in Kaduna State who have faced intersectional discrimination, the Empowering Women for Excellence Initiative (EWEI), on Friday, organized seminar for 60 people to reduce vulnerability, exploitation, violence and build resilience.
EWEI through its “Together We Can, (TWC)” project said it was poised to provide mental and psychosocial support, economic empowerment, counselling, and post-violence support to these marginalized women and girls facing intersectional discrimination, as well as survivors of Gender-Based Violence, physical violence, economic violence, and sexual exploitation.
Speaking on the sideline, EWEI’s Secondary Focal person for project TWC, Uche Brown, said the project engaged 60 women as primary beneficiaries, 30 each drawn from Kujama Community in Chikun Local Government Area (LGA), and Kasuwan Magani Community in Kajuru LGA respectively.
According to him, the day’s event was the second combined seminar for the beneficiaries and the session will introduce them to ways they could reduce vulnerability, exploitation, violence, and build resilience. “It will also help them know where to access support whenever someone tries to take advantage of them because of their vulnerability, and where to run to, what they need to do. The women will also be given some kind of activities that will foster togetherness among them,” Brown stated.
The Child Protection Desk Officer, Anti-Human Trafficking, Irregular Migration Unit of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC), Kaduna Command, DSC Shehu Suleiman Maiyaki, said to reduce vulnerability, exploitation, and violence and building resilience in the women and girls in this communities, some strategies should be considered.
DSC Maiyaki who was also a facilitator at the event said such strategies include: empowerment, community engagement, economic opportunities, policy and legal framework, support services, awareness and education, addressing the root causes among others of which the women have been enlightened in the session.
Another facilitator, a Kaduna based private Legal Practitioner, Bukola Ajao, who spoke to the women on knowing their rights said the main objective is to ensure that the women in their communities know their rights, and when it is being infringed upon.
According to her, there are lots of rights enshrined in Chapter 4 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; adding that apart from enumerating the rights available in the constitution to the women, there is also the Kaduna State Violence Against Persons Prohibition law of 2018 which has been signed into law, but most people don’t know about.
She said there are some important sections in that law that concerns women, such as the abandonment of spouse without means of sustenance, and the participants have been enlightened that this is a violation of their right and even a Gender-Based Violence.
Barr Ajao went further to say that this section of the law is also against forceful eviction of married partner; and even forceful eviction of partners by family members – sisters, brothers in-law, among others.
She added, “The women were also enlightened about Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Some people are not aware that FGM is an offense under the Violence Against Persons Prohibition law, section 5. It is even four years imprisonment or a fine of about N200,000; meaning that circumcising a female child is detrimental. It has health impact, it’s traumatizing, painful, the child could bleed to death.”
She believed the women after the sensitization have been enriched and they now know what their rights are, saying “Later on they will also be sensitized on how to go about it, where are the referral pathways if there’s this kind of concerns in their communities.”
A beneficiary from Kasuwan Magani community, Mercy Sani, said the seminar has indeed added to her knowledge especially in the areas of reducing vulnerability, exploitation, building resilience, knowing her rights and how to foster togetherness in her community.