Group takes campaign on violence against women, girls to Kaduna LGAs

A non-governmental organisation, Gender Awareness Trust, (GAT), with support from Amplify Change, has taken its awareness campaign on Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) to three of its Project Implementation Areas; including Jema’a, Chikun and Giwa local government areas of Kaduna State.

The Programme Officer at Gender Awareness Trust, Ms. Sophie Akut, said the campaign became necessary due to the rampant cases of rape and other forms of violence against women in the country.

She said, “Rape, domestic violence and other forms of VAWG are very serious violations of human rights resulting in a lot of harm to victims, including death; which affects not only women and girls but also their families, communities and the society at large. Not a lot is being done at every level to prevent these acts of violence.

“There are so many cases of sexual violations; especially of minors, going on these days, often perpetrated by family members, close neighbours and friends. Unfortunately, when this happens, the perpetrators go unpunished. We have to raise our voices to say No to any form of gender-based violence; and that’s the reason we are here.”

According to her, GAT also works with non-traditional male allies in each of the above mentioned communities to speak out against acts of violence that are regularly being meted out on girls and women in the community. She said they realised that to achieve their goal to end VAWG, they had to work with men and boys.

“GAT aims to popularise the content of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act 2015 which has been passed at the national level; to create more awareness about the rights of persons affected by violence. This is a call on the public. Let us do our part by doing the little we can; let us rise up, speak out