Women’s Rights Advocates Seek Protection, Faster Justice For GBV Victims

They made the call at the 100 Women Human Rights Defenders Summit, organised by the Ene Obi Centre for Development (ECD Nigeria), in collaboration with ActionAid and Global Affairs Canada, under the Renewed Women’s Voice and Leadership Nigeria Project.

The summit brought together women human rights defenders and representatives of women’s rights organisations to validate a mapping exercise on organisations working on women’s rights, gender-based violence and other human rights issues, as well as findings on the safety, security and protection challenges confronting women working on the front lines.

Speaking at the event, Executive Director, ECD Nigeria, Ene Obi, said women human rights defenders often become vulnerable while trying to protect survivors of gender-based violence, stressing the need to establish systems that would protect those defending the rights of others.

Obi said the mapping exercise was aimed at identifying women’s rights organisations, understanding their activities and assessing the security threats they face, so that appropriate support and protection plans could be developed.

She said, “We want to protect those who are right there on the front line. We want to focus on the challenges confronting women who are working on that front line because sometimes even when gender-based violence occurs and you get to the survivors, it is very difficult to prove certain things.

“So, the person who is on the front line becomes vulnerable and we want to protect them because the issue of social justice is to have an environment where equality can be experienced.”

According to her, the initiative is also designed to strengthen collaboration among women’s rights organisations and relevant government institutions, noting that ECD Nigeria was working with the Ministry of Women Affairs, Ministry of Justice, National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) and the National Human Rights Commission.

Obi said the mapping would help identify gaps in the network of organisations working to protect women and ensure that organisations that were missing from the analysis, including the media, were brought into the process.

She added that the initiative was collaborating with more than 100 organisations across the country to strengthen women’s agency and ensure that defenders could respond effectively when cases of violence or human rights violations occurred.

Also speaking, FCT State Coordinator of Christian Women for Excellence and Empowerment in Nigerian Society (CWEENS), Pastor Deborah Life-Alegbemi, called for the establishment of mobile courts to accelerate the prosecution of gender-based violence cases.

She said delays in the justice system could discourage victims and allow perpetrators to continue committing violence, stressing that swift punishment would serve as a deterrent.

“One of the recommendations is that let’s have mobile courts. When there is a case of domestic violence, rape, anything on gender-based violence, let there be a mobile court within the space of two weeks, one month. Let justice be gotten,” she said.

Life-Alegbemi said CWEENS operates shelters for abused women and girls in the FCT and Plateau State, where survivors are rehabilitated, empowered and prepared for reintegration into society.

She said the organisation had chapters across several states and was participating in the second phase of the Women’s Voice and Leadership Project, with the objective of expanding its reach to all 36 states.

Meanwhile, Communications Specialist, ECD Nigeria, Patience Ismaila Zeera, said the summit was designed to create a stronger support system for women human rights defenders by listening to their experiences, fears and challenges.

Zeera said it was not enough to have women defending survivors of violence without creating mechanisms to protect the defenders themselves.

“It’s one thing to be able to save those going through gender-based violence, but it’s another thing to ensure that the defenders themselves are being defended,” she said.

She explained that the summit would strengthen collaboration among organisations working on specific issues, including children, women and gender-based violence, so that they could respond collectively when cases arose.

According to her, the initiative would also enable participating organisations working with schools, universities and children to extend awareness and protection mechanisms to those institutions.

She said the collective approach would help build a stronger women’s rights movement capable of responding more effectively to gender-based violence and other rights violations at community level.