SGBV Advocacy: Activist Shifting Focus From Awareness Creation To Prevention

Women activists in Nigeria are shifting focus from awareness creation on Sexual and Gender-based Violence (SGBV) to prevention measures.

Guests Oluwaseun Owosobi and Oritsejafor Ngwumbua, at a discuss panel organized by the Embassy of France and Institut Francais as part of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence said it is high time the conversation shifted to prevention, following the intensive awareness campaigns on SGBV by civil societies which have seen more victims reporting SGBV without fear of discrimination or stigmatization.

For Executive Director, Stand To End Rape Initiative (STER), Oluwaseun A. Osowobi, prevention means educating women, girls, boys and men on the signs and patterns of violence, changing perceptions of the power dynamic between men and women, changing attitudes and improving actions on human and women’s rights issues.

Osowobi is also adamant about helping SGBV victims and the public separate social issues from a crime, the later which she said, SGBV and every other kind of violence falls within. She said that unlike land disputes or issues of couples suffering infertility that can be resolved using alternative resolutions mechanisms, helmed by extended family members and the church, sexual and gender-based violence is a crime that by law government institutions are mandated to take actions for and against the perpetrators.

Thus, even in the case of one-time violence against one’s spouse, she maintained should be reported to government authorities.

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“I am about nipping things in the bud before it escalates. Slapping and hitting is not a social issue. It is a crime in itself. We need to separate social and religious issues that can be resolved internally, from what is a crime, that shouldn’t be resolved internally.

“What you see as a slap could kill someone. Don’t try to belittle the action. Look at the impact the action can have on the individual and establish it for what it is. It is not just a slap. It is physical violence. The family and church are not the state that should respond to it. What the church should be doing is to pray for, and support SGBV victims’ decision to take action, not step in the place of what government should be doing,” Owosobi reiterated.

At Mind Yourself Mental Health Initiative, psycho-mental therapy/support is the key to prevention of SGBV. Oritsejafor Ngwumbua said through promotions and advocacy programmes directed at families (parents and children) and socio-cultural institutions it is tackling issues of violence from the foundation.

Its advocacy, she said is targeted at emphasizing the gravity of SGBV and violence of any sort, and how such actions are bound to breed a generational cycle of violence, as children learn from their parents and other adults around them.