A university lecturer, Mrs Helen Obi, says education remains the key to tackling rape and other patterns of gender-based violence in the country.
Obi, a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, made the assertion at a two-day training of members of the Gender Mobile Initiative (GMI).
The training was organised by the Nigeria Girl Guides Association (NGGA) Tuesday in Lagos.
GMI is a non-governmental organisation that works with victims and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence, by providing them with support services, as well as equip them with skills that would assist them in preventing and responding to various patterns of violence.
Obi, Anambra state commissioner of the NGGA and the facilitator of the training, said all efforts to track and punish perpetrators of all forms of violence against persons, including girls and women may not yield the desired results if governments fail to prioritise education.
“Today, we are training a total of 15 members of the Mobile Gender Initiative who are here to get trained on how to use the NGGA’s Voice Against Violence module or curriculum to collectively drive the advocacy more to ensure that some of our laws concerning these whole issue are implemented fully.
”We as a people may not make any meaningful progress if we do not do the right thing first, which is educating the mind.
”Education is one of the social services and directive principles of state policies which government must address.
` It is a fundamental that governments should ensure that people acquire education. We are all struggling to sanitise our system but then, we must work on impunity too, which I see in most Nigerians,” she said.
The don said that Nigerians like to do things to the contrary.
”We are all aware of our rights but the impunity there is that we like to infringe on that rights.
“This is where education plays a huge role. We cannot talk about security and social change without bringing in education just as we cannot also talk about attitudinal change without education.
“The impact of education on an individual is that it will cultivate the mind and bring about knowledge and desired change,’’ she said.
The don also called on governments to intensify efforts in ensuring that the recently passed law –‘Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act’ – must be seen to be domesticated in all states of the federation.
She said that some civil societies such as the NGGA, are already making impacts to ensure that the increasing cases of violence such as rape, child abuse, early marriage, wife battery, murder, are reduced.
Obi also called for the amendment of the country’s constitution, arguing that a lot of laws needed a second look.
She blamed some cultural issues as the causes of gender-based violence, adding that cultural and social norms had socialised males to be aggressive, unemotional and controlling which contributed to a social acceptance of men as dominant.
Weak laws, she said, leading to lack of access to justice and equal protection under the law is also a factor.
“In some parts of the country, Section 55 Penal Code LFN 2014 encourages beating of wife for the purpose of correction. This is against Section 34 CFRN on the right to dignity of human person,’’ Obi said.
Also speaking, Assistant Project Commissioner of the NGGA, Mrs Lilian Damie, said that the association had trained over 2,400 young leaders from 27 states across the country on issues bordering on the Voices Against Violence using a curriculum it developed.
She said the Voices Against Violence curriculum is an educational programme developed by the Girl Guides globally to educate children and young persons on how to prevent violence at any given point in time.
She said that the curriculum was for a specific age bracket of young girls – ages five to 26.
“For us, running a national training on members of the `Gender Mobile Initiative’ is a plus as together, we shall collaborate at multi levels to promote, advance and support the efforts of governments and organisations to address issues bordering on sexual and other gender-based violence.
“Our mandate as an association is to train any organisations that want to support us to deliver our curriculum.
“We are happy training these young men and women, numbering 15, as they will be helping us reach out to more children and young women across Nigeria.
“When we train our young leaders of this association also, who come from other states across the federation including the those in the North, it is expected that they go back and train others and impact by spreading the message,’’ Damie said.
