Sexual, gender violence, major threats in North-east – UNDP

By Binta Shama

Abuja

Nigeria’s Country Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Mrs. Onyinye Ndubuisi, has identified sexual and gender-based violence as some of the problems bedeviling the North-east part of the country.
Ndubuisi, who spoke in Abuja yesterday at the opening session of a training workshop tagged: “Support to Access to Justice in the North East of Nigeria,” also observed that “long delays in court proceedings and lack of commitment by relevant agencies were some of the issues that beset the region.”
The Country Representative, who pledged UNDP’s commitment to addressing the menace, said strengthening the institutions of justice would enhance public trust and accountability, noted the “lack of female law enforcement agencies in critical areas like the IDPs camps.
The workshop was organised by the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS) with UNDP as the implementation partner.
Also in his address, the Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS), Prof. Adedeji Adekunle, harped on the need to initiate and follow up interventions in the area of rehabilitation and peacemaking in the North East as a result of conflict caused by the Boko Haram insurgency.
Adekunle said in addressing North-east’s problems, efforts should be made in the area of deradicalisation and rehabilitation and compensation, as well as training of personnel to undertake the identified exercises.
He also disclosed that the project would concentrate on key justice institutions in the three states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states, saying that “the idea, among others, is to support the police, justice ministry, courts, counselling in prisons and IDPs camp to strengthen justice administration.”
He, however, disclosed that by next week enumerators/observers trained during the workshop would be deployed to the three states of the North-east to “enable proper mapping of strategies to know areas that require a particular intervention.”

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