Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Abbas Tajudeen, has declared that the National Assembly will do everything humanly possible to ensure all forms of violence against women and girls were drastically reduced, if not completely eliminated in the nearest future.
Abbas made this declaration while speaking at the ‘Walk Against Gender-based Violence’, which took place from National Assembly complex to the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) headquarters in Abuja on Monday.
The event organised by the United Nations-UN Women in collaboration with the National Assembly was a demonstration against gender-based violence, which attracted 1,000 participants who staged a walk in solidarity to demand stronger action against the ill in Nigeria.
Speaker Abbas announced that the National Assembly, particularly the House of Representatives, will play an active role in the next national action plan against violence against women that will be coming up very soon.
He said: “Today is a day of history, the National Assembly has chosen to become an active participant with other groups in the country to fight against gender violence.
“This year’s programme came at a time when all over the world, women are crying, women are in anger, women are in frustration. This is the year the United Nations issued a damning report that for every 10 minutes, a woman is being killed across the world. This is an unacceptable trend. This is an unforgivable trend.
“We in the parliament must have to unite more than ever before with relevant authorities, particularly the law enforcement agencies to ensure that we curb this dangerous trend to the barest minimum.
“I want to say it categorically clear here that the National Assembly will do everything humanly possible to ensure that all forms of violence against women and girls are drastically reduced, if not completely eliminated in the nearest future.
“The House of Representatives will also participate actively in ensuring that policies are enacted that will significantly reduce the incidents of violence of all kinds against women, against children, against girls. We declare the 16 days of Activism to mark the elimination of violence against women in Nigeria,” Abbas added.
Presenting a petition to the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, on the Need for all Victims of Gender-based Violence to get justice, Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Women Affairs, Kafilat Ogbara, bemoaned the harrowing plights of women of the melaise.
Ogbara said a study showed that one in three women are victims of gender-based violence globally while the National Democratic and Health Survey revealed that 30 percent of women aged 15-49 have experienced physical violence with many suffering abuses.
She said; “We are only here to speak to the IGP, please he should help us talk the policemen and police women that when we have cases of gender-based violence at the police station, we want to get justice, to say that there is no excuse for violence against women and our girls, against our mothers, to our daughters, to our families.
“We are saying no to lecturers who will tell students that they will fail them if they did not yield in. We’re saying no to bosses at work for violating their secretaries, their staff, that they will sack them if they don’t yield in. We’re saying no to fathers raping daughters…”
Accepting the petition Inspector General of Police Egbetokun, said eradicating gender-based violence across the country was a collective effort and not only the law enforcement agencies alone and assured that the petition would be treated accordingly.
“Gender-based violence has continued to devastate lives across the globe and in the continent of Africa, thousands of girls and women have continued to suffer domestic violence, sexual assaults, there are some areas where the tradition abuses the rights of women. We’ve cases of genital mutilation and others like that.
“Since 2006, the Nigerian Police Force has developed what we call gender policy which is implementing global framework and we are committed to implementing that policy until today. We will treat this petition as expected,” he stated.
