Women’s Rights and Health Project, WRAHP has trained adolescent girls in Alimosho Local Government on Sexual and Gender Based Violence, to help reduce their level of vulnerability.
The training, which was incorporated into the town hall meeting for adolescent girls in Alimosho, was a follow-up to the implementation of Priorities identified initially in the community by Ireti Resources Centre through with support from the EU funded Rule of Law and Anti-corruption (RoLAC) programme managed by the British Council in Nigeria.
Precious Eberechukwu, community representative WRAHP, while explaining the importance of the training session disclosed that, “the death of 11 years old favour who was raped to death in Egbe-Idimu community in September 2020 has drawn the attention of Ireti Resource centre to help prevent SGBV cases and seek justice.”
Eberechukwu also stressed that the meeting is particularly to educate and enlighten adolescent girls of their right because they are vulnerable to Sexual Gender Based Violence (SGBV) due to the fact that they are not economically sufficient and these are one of the ways they get exposed to being violated.
“Girls and women are vulnerable to SGBV, because they are not economically independent and men use money to entice them and expose them to various forms of violence. Thus, we want this training to equip women and girls adequately and also to empower them to become whistleblowers in their communities”.
Speaking on some of the factors that have hindered access to justice on SGBV cases, Eberechukwu noted that community members identified “collection of bribery by the police whenever SGBV cases are reported, Lack of funds to foster justice, Families living in one room apartment and Survivors backing out of cases after reporting it, culture of silence among others.”
To mitigate that, she disclosed that, “we have told them to speak up whenever SGBV cases happen, because if they keep silent, a perpetrator will be embolden to continue.”
One of the participants at the training, Comrade Wasiu Adefowope, Youth chairman of Egbe Idimu community who affirmed that rape cases were high in Alimosho but with the intervention by WRAHP, cases have been reducing.
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“Rape cases happens everywhere in different places but we are limited to the ones we see. It has been recorded that Alimosho Local Government has the highest number of domestic violence cases in Lagos state.
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“WRAHP has been involved in advocacies to end all the social vices in different communities in Ebge Idimu LCDA. The activities have been very effective and enlightening to the people of the community,” he added.
An adolescent at the training, Ilalokhoin Esther, also shared how the series of engagement with WRAHP have been, adding that “I’ve been equipped to speak against any form of violence and also enlighten people within my community on how to speak against violence.”