Kano State women affairs commissioner, Hajiya Zahra’u Mohammad Umar, has called on the Hisbah commanders in the state to discharge their duties in accordance with the stipulated Sharia laws guiding their conduct. Zahrau said the role of Hisbah encompasses everything hence they need to rise up to their official responsibilities.
A non-profit organisation, the Development Research and Projects Centre (dRPC), with support from Ford Foundation organised the 3-day sensitisation on the protection of the rights of women and girls as provided under Islamic laws.
Hisbah commanders from Kano, Katsina, Jigawa, Sokoto, Kebbi, and Zamfara states were in attendance in the three-day workshop that was organised to educate, sensitize, and empower the commanders on Islamic perspective on gender violence and protection of women and girls in the society.
Dr Umar Umar described the workshop as a welcome development, especially at a time the nation is fighting the menace of gender-based violence across the country.
She revealed that the Kano government had established a Sexual Assault Rehabilitation Centre to support victims and provide psycho-social services to the victims of gender-based violence in the state. She disclosed that four more such centres would be established in all the four emirate councils in the state to serve as a support centre for women and girls who suffered gender-based violence.
Earlier in his lead paper, Professor U. M. Zubair of Bayero University, Kano quoted portions of the glorious Qur’an and Hadith to provide a grounded basis for the protection of women and girls as an injunction that must be established by all, either in authority, or serving as defenders of morality and behaviour.
Technical adviser, dRPC in Kano State, Alhaji Ubale Rano disclosed that the workshop is part of the 16 Days of Activism against GBV, an international campaign that takes place each year to eliminate violence against women which indicates that it is the most pervasive breach of human rights worldwide.
He said the workshop was organised as a strategy to expose the commanders to what Islam said about women and girls’ rights and as a call for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls (VAWG) in Nigeria using Islamic yardstick.
Earlier, the emir of Kano, Alhaji Aminu Ado Bayero, represented by the Sarkin Dawaki Maituta, Alhaji Bello Abubakar commended the organisers of the training and promised the support of the Emirate in protecting women and girls in the state.
