WRAHP leads campaign against gender, sexual based violence
Women’s Rights And Health Project (WRAHP) has led the Lagos State Ministry of Justice, Office of Public Defender (OPD) and International Federation of Female Lawyers, (FIDA) to campaign against Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) in the Ayobo/Ipaja area of Alimosho in the state.
The programme which took place over the weekend was a one-day community walk against SGBV and was supported by Actionaid, Nigeria, funded by Global Affairs, Canada, under the women’s voice and leadership project.
Bose Ironsi, executive director of WRAHP said that her organisation concentrated efforts in the Alimosho area because in the Lagos State report it was discovered that Alimosho has the highest cases of reported SGBV in the state.
She said, “We have our psychosocial resource centre, that is Ireti resource centre in Alimosho so we need to garner more support for people to access the centre. We have done a lot of activities around Ikotun/Igando but we also need to make our presence visible in Ayobo/Ipaja. We want to ensure that the people know where to go when they are in need.
“We are also having legal clinics because we get reports that some people complain that they don’t know what to do when things happen. We have legal clinics in partnership with the OPD and the Lagos State FIDA.
“We are expecting the community to come because we mobilized and engaged our mandated reporters in Alimosho to encourage people to come and they are responding. Some of them will talk to us about their legal needs and we can make referrals and for those, we can handle we will deal and for others, we will send them to OPD which is an agency of the Lagos State government.
She said that the members of Alimosho are excited about the presence of the Ireti resource centre and so far the centre has handled about 500 cases.
“By tomorrow Ireti Resource Centre will be one year old. With the establishment of Idera centre which is the Sexual Assault Referral Centre, (SARC) which we also initiated, there has been a lot of improvements,” she said.
Mrs Olivia Nwachukwu, secretary of FIDA Lagos State said that as a gender-based association, they have come to offer legal services to indigent people in the society, stressing that SGBV is a scourge and they have come to see how it can be eradicated through sensitization of the people.
“We want to inform them of the need to always reach out to people like us to help them by offering free legal services because sometimes they have a voice but they don’t have the money to seek legal help. We want them to know that we can help them solve their needs free of charge.
“We have spoken to them about the laws against SGBV informing them about the provisions of the law and how they can seek legal advice. Our presence has been very visible and by the 8th of this September, FIDA will be opening its 40th branch in Badagry and on the 9th of this month we will have the Ikorodu branch which is our 41st branch. We want to reach all the crannies and we are happy that we have impacted the Nigerian society,” she said.
Alhaji Hassan Akani, chairman of Alimosho Community Development Committee (CDC) commended WRAHP for what they have been doing in Alimosho. “Mrs Bose Ironsi has been passionate about the fight against the scourge. The Ireti Resource Centre has been very helpful because we don’t have to go to the Mirabel centre,” he said.
Corroborating Akani, Adebayo Tokunboh, the CDC secretary for Ayobo/Ipaja said that rape and other SGBV have been reduced because people are now informed about the menace and consequences of abuse stressing that Ireti Resource Centre has done so much to help the people of the area.
Olakanmi Omoyemi, a counsel with Lagos State Ministry of Justice, Department of OPD said that they were there to sensitize people on SGBV and the rights of women and children in particular under the law.
“OPD is established mainly for the less privileged and indigent people in Lagos State and the legal services that we render are free of charge. The responses that we have been getting since the establishment of OPD 16 years ago has been very impressive.
“We have had cases of domestic violence and we have had judgments for most of the term in court. We have been able to sensitize the community, given them all our addresses in Lagos State and we expect them to come to our offices with their complaints and we will attend to them,” Olakanmi said.
