A non-governmental organisation (NGO) under the aegis of Centre for Gender Economics (CGE Africa) has charged Cross River State ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) to formulate policies and budgets that respond to gender-based violence (GBV), prevention, mitigation, and empowerment.
The group, which advocates institutional support in the promotion of women’s access to economic activities across all ages, also canvassed innovative solutions to achieve economic equality and security for women in Nigeria’s six geo-political zones.
CGE’s executive director, Uchenna Idoko, who gave insights on the gender-based issues yesterday in Calabar, the state capital at a workshop for 46 participants drawn from the state’s MDAs charged them to use the knowledge gained to be innovative in the formulation of policies and budgets to prevent, empower and mitigate gender-based violence.
Idoko who spoke at the workshop titled; “Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) for Gender Based Violence (GBV) Prevention and Mitigation in Cross River State” averred that by so doing, the state and nation at large stand the chance to secure safe families and society that can build tomorrow’s leaders.
“This is why the government must begin to budget to prevent violence against men, women, boys, and girls, because of their gender, by so doing, we will have a safer state, we will have children, and have normal humans, we will have safe families that can raise our leaders of tomorrow.
“Like we said during the training, prevention is better than mitigation. Mitigation can lead to war. A lot of people are going through violence in different ways, and the government is just seeing the numbers as just numbers without knowing that there are people behind the numbers.
“My expectation from participants at the end of the training is that every MDA, especially the ones that are here is to start having a budget that responds swiftly to GBV prevention, empowerment and mitigation.
“To the participants, I urge you to join hands with your chief executives to develop a programme, within your budget threshold which you already have not even increased the budget, but prioritize and allocate money on GBV prevention, empowerment, and mitigation.
“I want to see that the ministry of education is responsive to GBV by their training. Even if it is in schools, a lot of gender-based violence is ongoing even in primary schools. If they can kick-start a process of budgeting for that responsiveness without waiting for international agencies, it would be fine.
“The same thing with the Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Youths’ Development, Works and Housing, Culture and Tourism, and Humanitarian services. You can think about the numbers as humans, you will know that women are in IDP camps without menstrual pads.
“Women are in IDP camps being raped because even where they shower is not enclosed, men see women while they are taking their bath. I urge you to make some changes, construct main toilets, let there be toilets for females and others for males, keep them in safe conditions and not in tarpaulins that can easily be pulled down by children,” Idoko said.
