Rampant cases of rape, attempted rape, harmful widowhood practices, spousal battering and forceful ejection from homes, intimidation, and physical abuses have risen to 1,467 cases in Akwa Ibom State, the Gender-based Violence (GBV) Committee has revealed.
While reeling out the statistics in Uyo, the state capital, during a briefing at the Ministry of Justice, Barr Emem Ette, the secretary of the GBV Management Committee, expressed concerns over the rising cases of such crimes in the state.
She disclosed that since the inauguration of the committee in 2021, the state had recorded 401 rape cases, 118 attempted rape cases, 53 harmful widowhood practices, and 65 abandonment of dependants consisting of people who abandoned their spouses and children.
According to her, 32 cases of forceful ejection from homes, 54 cases of intimidation, 35 incest cases, 520 spousal battering, and 165 cases of physical abuse, among others, also combined to make the GBV problem a high-risk issue in the state.
Ette recalled that the state government had, in 2021, adopted a multi-sectoral approach to responding to GBV issues by setting up the committee after enacting the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Law on June 10, 2020.
She said: “That committee is a masterstroke by the state government because we have achieved a lot since we were inaugurated in September 2021.
“First of all, what the committee did was to have a state-wide sensitisation campaign, and we went to each federal constituency to tell our people about the ills of GBV: how to identify violence, how to respond to violence and where to report violence.
“Between 2021 and 2022, we had a drastic drop in cases of GBV because our people became more aware of this menace in our society.
After going through the ten federal constituencies, we discovered our challenges and found the need to address these challenges.
“The first one we did was to establish sexual assault referral centres in Uyo and Ikot Ekpene local government areas since we had one already in Eket LGA, and the government is looking into supporting the agape centre in Eket.
“We are also trying to see how we could connect pharmacists and chemists to ensure that victims and survivors have easy access to medical care.
“We have also built a 66-bed shelter mainly for victims of sexual and GBV in the state. I dare say it is the best in Nigeria. Within those premises, we have a well-furnished skill acquisition centre that trains survivors on life skills to be financially independent and care for themselves and their children.”
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