By Harmless Anaba
A rights group, WomenAid Collective, WACOL, has launched a two-year venture aimed toward empowering Christian girls and cultural leaders to stop and reply to gender-based violence, GBV, throughout Nigeria. The initiative will likely be carried out in partnership with 9 grassroots organisations rigorously chosen from the six geo-political zones.
Founding Govt Director of WACOL and Tamar Sexual Assault Referral Centre, SARC, Prof. Pleasure Ezeilo, SAN, who addressed newsmen in Lagos, mentioned the programme would mobilise girls on the group degree to problem dangerous cultural and non secular practices that perpetuate violence in opposition to girls and ladies.
“Remodeling social and cultural norms to stop gender-based violence in Nigeria is feasible if we construct the capability of grassroots girls leaders, mobilise Christian girls’s teams, and promote attitudinal change inside communities,” she mentioned.
The venture, funded by the Ford Basis West Africa Workplace, comes in opposition to the backdrop of alarming instances of abuse in church buildings and communities. WACOL/Tamar SARC at present handles tons of of instances, together with one the place two sisters, aged 15 and 17, have been raped throughout a so-called deliverance session.
Ezeilo recalled high-profile tragedies, together with the dying of gospel singer, Osinachi Nwachukwu, in 2022, because of home violence, and the rape and homicide of Vera Omozuwa and Barakat Bello in 2020.
“These incidents are a reminder that gender-based violence is aware of no boundaries. Church buildings, which ought to be protected areas, have in some instances change into websites of abuse. This venture seeks to alter that actuality by empowering girls leaders with instruments to drive constructive cultural and non secular transformation,” she harassed.
Beneath the initiative, WACOL will practice 1,000 girls non secular leaders and 500 cultural leaders, together with titled girls such because the Umu Ada in Igboland, whereas an interdenominational community of Christian girls’s teams may even be created to advance equality and prevention of GBV.
The chosen grassroots companions embody: Ladies Empowerment Initiative (Bauchi), Basis for Group Empowerment Initiative (Gombe), Gender Consciousness Belief (Kaduna), Succour Basis (Abuja), Hacey’s Well being Initiative (Lagos), Gender Perspective and Social Improvement Centre (Anambra), World Well being Consciousness Analysis Basis (Enugu), Justice Improvement and Peace Centre (Edo), and Agape Improvement Initiative for Youths and the Vulnerables (Delta).
Prof. Ezeilo emphasised that cultural and non secular platforms, usually misused to strengthen patriarchy can be highly effective instruments for liberation.
“The Bible itself promotes equality and condemns violence in opposition to girls. Our purpose is to revive these truths and construct inclusive church buildings and communities the place girls are protected, revered, and capable of lead,” she mentioned.
Anticipated outcomes of the venture embody stronger grassroots capability to answer GBV, lowered instances of abuse, and higher inclusion of ladies in church and group management.
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