World Bank takes awareness campaign on GBV, genital mutilation to Nasarawa

Issues concerning Gender-based Violence, sexual exploitation and harassment and female genital mutilation took a centre stage at a one-day sensitisation workshop for community and religious leaders, drawn across the 13 local government areas of Nasarawa State.

e workshop organised by the Nigeria COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Project (COPREP), a World Bank-assisted project, was in collaboration with the Nasarawa

State Government, to educate stakeholders on the dangers posed by the menace on young girls.

Esther Yonah, Gender Pillar Head of COPREP in the state, said the workshop was also to address, basically the increasing cases of gender-based violence and other issues a ecting the girl child in the state

Yonah then lamented how the issues of GBV and female genital mutilation, had greatly a ected the self-esteem of most females in the state.

She explained that, the females’ rights had been the most abused and neglected, despite the several campaigns launched to create awareness on the people.

Yonah, therefore appealed to the stakeholders to show more commitment in the ght against gender-based violence and female genital mutilation in their respective communities in order to restore the con dence of many oppressed females across the state, and to forestall future occurrences.

“ere has been a lot of issues concerning Gender-based Violence, sexual exploitation and sexual harassment, that was why the World Bank supported Nasarawa State through the Center for Disease Control to implement this project in the state.

“Some time in February, we were able to call stakeholders here (La a) to develop the state’s action plan to ensure that the people are safe in their work places, schools and communities.

“So today, we had to step down this action plan to the stakeholders at the community level. Now that they have been trained, they will have to develop their comprehensive plans in their various communities to tackle issues relating to gender-based violence and other matters a ecting the girl child,” she added.

e Director, Public Defender at the Nasarawa State Ministry of Justice, Justina Allu, decried the issue of indecent dressing amongst young girls in the society, and called for a behavioral change to address the issues of sexual harassment, sexual molestation, among others.

She said, “For the students and other young ladies moving around naked, they should know that it is an o ense in section 26 of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Law in the state.