UN Women Nigeria, Ford Foundation To Tackle Gender-based Violence

The UN Women Nigeria, Ford foundation and civil society groups have said, they would work closely with faith leaders, decision makers, policy makers, traditional leaders in West Africa, amongst others, to promote women’s empowerment which they said was crucial to ending gender based violence.

They also expressed the need to address the collective shifting norms that promote gender based violence in communities and establishments, noting that, they would employ innovative ways to strengthen institutions to tackle GBV and negative gender norms that perpetuate amongst girls and women in various levels of society.

Speaking at a roundtable of cultural and faith leaders in Lagos, Country Representative of UN Women Nigeria, Mrs. Beatrice Eyong said, the roundtable was geared toward listening and learning from experiences with a view to helping tackle the challenge of violence against women and girls.

She hopes that the dialogue will serve to synergise efforts that will accelerate positive actions, by addressing issues of sexual and gender- based violence in line with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals agenda as well as the African Union’s vetoes 63 agenda.

Also speaking, the foundation’s Programme Officer, Gender-Based Violence and Injustice,Mrs Funke Baruwa said, the foundation was employing innovative ways to tackle GBV by engaging traditional, cultural and religious leaders, while using civil society groups as entry points to lead the advocacy.

Speaking on gender violence, Regional director, West Africa, Ford Foundation, Dr Chichi Aniagolu-Okoye, said a report showed that 49 per cent of divorced, separated or widowed women reported experiencing violence since age 18 and that 28 per cent of women who are married or living with their spouses had experienced violence.

She added that, women in the South-South zone of Nigeria experienced a higher rate of violence at 46.4 per cent, followed by the North-Central, North-East,South East and South West at 43 per cent, 38 per cent, 36 per cent and 29 per cent respectively.

”The North-West has the lowest rate at 11.7 per cent, however, there have been arguments that this is because reporting is relatively very low in the North-West compared to other zones and compared to the south in general.

“Nonetheless, the point that we are making is, gender- based violence is pervasive. It cuts across political zones and every of the social indices,” she said.

The regional director also noted that the situation of gender-based violence occurs in the workplace, in religious spaces, and the wider society.

According to her, the problem manifests itself in in the form of sexual harassment, rape, wife and child battery, widowhood rights, excessive burden of housework, acid baths and female genital mutilation, among others.

She explained that, while GBV also affected men, statistics showed that the overwhelming victims were women.

She said, the death of Osinachi, a Nigerian gospel singer, who died from domestic violence, was a significant reference of domestic violence in Christian faith.

Commenting on Petroleum Industry Bill, Aniagolu-Okoye further said, a lot had been done in the area of resource governance, focusing on resource-rich communities, especially in the Niger Delta region and creating awareness on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).

Aniagolu-Okoye said: “we have been focusing on communities that are resource-rich and so a lot of our work has been done in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria and more recently, we have been looking at making sure that communities are aware and know the contents of the PIB.

“We are also beginning to organise them through our partners, of course, to be able to negotiate more effectively with the private sector, with the government and to make sure that the provisions of the PIB are actually being implemented in a way that is beneficial to local communities.

“Beyond that, we are also helping local communities with research, litigation, you know, litigation, where that is necessary, so that they are able to hold both companies and government accountable for infractions in their communities.”

Also speaking, vice president of Ford Foundation, Mrs Hilary Pennington, stressed, it is engaging local communities to understand what it means to be custodians of the minerals in their respective areas.

Pennington said the indigenous people in communities that sit over massive natural resources are the first defenders of those resources, but do not have legal rights to their lands.

She said, they were not equipped to have power and to sit at the tables where negotiations were being made about the value that gets extracted from those lands.

Pennington, who was decorated as Queen of Africa by the Council of Traditional Rulers in Africa (COTLA) at the programme, said the foundation’s mission was to advance human dignity and reduce inequality in all its forms around the world.

“As an American foundation, even though we have an office in Nigeria, led by West Africans, we cannot do this work effectively without you and without your advice, without your guidance, without your leadership and without your partnership.

“You know we have heard statistics that are very sobering today, and many facts and numbers.

“Behind each of those facts and numbers of people are human lives or human potential male and female, female and male that are held back because of the culture, the norms and practices we have all over the world, not just in Africa, and I believe we are the generation that can change this,” she added.