DaSilva-Ibru: Creating Safe Haven For Survivors Of Rape, Sexual Violence

Since its incorporation six years ago, the Women at Risk International Foundation (WARIF) has diligently adopted a unique and survivor-centered approach in addressing the intervention and prevention of gender-based violence across the country, with a unique framework known as the WARIF Approach, focusing on Health, Education and Community Service.

Founded in 2016 by Dr. Kemi DaSilva-Ibru, a practicing specialist Obstetrician and Gynaecologist and Public Health Physician with over 20 years of experience, the organisation was established in response to the alarming rates of rape, sexual violence and sex trafficking of young girls and women in Nigeria and West Africa. 

DaSilva-Ibru told LEADERSHIP Weekend, at an interactive WARIF-media parley, that, as an organisation aimed to raise awareness and combat the prevalence of these issues through the development and implementation of a series of initiatives that address the post-incident intervention and treatment of affected women and girls, as well as providing preventive measures with the provision of impactful and measurable programme in education and community service to reduce the incidence of such violence.

Some of the services provided for survivors of rape and violence at no cost, are forensic medical examinations, medical treatment, and testing, use of prophylactic drugs, and individual and group counselling sessions to address psychosocial needs and social welfare such as shelters, the founder averred.

The organisation recently opened WARIF Satellite Clinic at the Cece Yara Foundation in Gbagada – offering essential medical services to children enduring acts of sexual abuse and violence. To date, the WARIF Rape Crisis Centre has supported over 4,500 survivors and has reached across the country through its 24-hour free toll-free helpline, she averred.

Under the education pillar, WARIF has established three major initiatives to reduce the incidence of sexual and gender-based violence, DaSilva-Ibru revealed, adding that, the Prevention of Campus Sexual Violence in Tertiary Institutions Programme focuses on addressing gender-based violence among students on campuses. 

So far, the programme has provided the first-ever online classroom programme, educating over 8,000 students from 106 tertiary institutions in Nigeria on the prevention of sexual violence and how to report such cases. 

Other programmes designed for adolescent school-aged girls and boys are the WARIF Educational School Project (WESP) providing comprehensive education to young girls about the appropriate response and the prevention of school-related sexual violence, and the Boys Conversation Cafe (BCC) programme mentors’ young boys, encouraging a shift in their mindset regarding rape and promoting a culture of protection rather than perpetration.

DaSilva-Ibru however vowed to continue to work with the media as the issue of rape and other forms of genderbased violence in our society is severely underreported.

Education  And Career

Kemi DaSilva-Ibru is a specialist healthcare physician who is dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls through medical practice, social activism and wider public advocacy against gender-based violence.

Her medical and academic career has spanned across three decades and three continents. She graduated from the College of Medicine, University of Lagos before completing her postgraduate training in OBGYN at Howard University, Washington DC and obtaining a Master’s from the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. 

She has also taken other postgraduate medical courses in various specialties, and is an alumna of the Lagos Business School, Pan-Atlantic University, Lagos. She is currently undertaking a PhD in gender-based violence at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Her professional memberships include; the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, the American Medical Association, Medical Women Association of Nigeria, the Association of Public Health Physicians Nigeria, the Faculty of Public Health, UK and the American Public Health Association. She is also a member of the Institute of Directors, Nigeria.