Worried by the endemic cases of rapes and other gender based violence against women in the country, a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) called ‘Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre’ (WARDC), has organized a training workshop for young women drawn from various tertiary institutions in the Bauchi state on how to curb women’s violence.
The workshop which took place at Chartwell Hotel Bauchi houses girls from Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Bauchi, Bauchi State University Gadau, Federal Polytechnic Bauchi, and School of Agriculture Bauchi.
The workshop rigorously engaged the young women on incidences of gender based violence and how they could be addressed.
Dr. Abiola Akiyode Afolabi, the Executive Director of Women Advocates, Research and Documentation Centre says the workshop “is aimed at building their capacity to be able to fight against sexual and gender based violence in their schools and also ensure that they can be able to take leadership positions.
She said the centre as part of its strategies to fight incidences of gender based violence in tertiary institutions deems it necessary to establish the young women campus hub which would be responding to issues of violence to ensure that their campuses are free of any forms of violence.
“So today we are training them about the context of the problem to enable them know how they can participate and address the gender based violence in their campuses and how they can make their voices heard and stop violence around them”, she said.
Dr. Abiola added that the project which is being supported by the African Women Development Fund based in Ghana also supports issues related to women and girls across Africa including Internally Displaced Persons.
Also speaking, a facilitator at the workshop Hajiya Binta Adamu said the objective of the project is to promote leadership among young people and is supposed to strengthen their resilience against violence as well as support changes in policies.
She emphasized the need for resilience to enable them speak out on incidences of abuse on their campuses.
“Sexual harassment or any form of violence against women should not be tolerated; so what we are doing today is to strengthen the voices of these young women to be able to have the courage to report abuse whenever it occurs”, she said.
Some of the students who spoke at the workshop expressed satisfaction on its content, saying they were embolden to take action.