CSO trains MDAs on ‘effective response’ to gender-based violence cases

The State of Emergency GBV Movement has trained gender desk officers in government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to strengthen their capacity in handling gender-based violence cases.

The training, which took place on Thursday in Abuja, is part of the accountability project of the CSO to improve accountability on budgetary allocations and implementation of GBV activities of the desk officers in MDAs.

Ayodeji Osowebi, executive director of Stand to End Rape Initiative (STER), who is also a member of the State of Emergency GBV Movement, said the workshop was organised to train the desk officers on designing potent GBV programmes that address key issues and not misplaced priority.

“As a movement, our priority is to prevent and respond to sexual and gender-based violence issues in Nigeria and we have realised that one of the critical members to make that happen are the desk officers across different ministries because they have the responsibility to respond gender-based violence issues in the country,” she said.

“So we are organising this one-day training – we are hoping that they get more knowledge on how to create effective and data-driven programmes in their different ministries, and to ensure that they have an understanding of the laws that applies to gender and sexual-based violence so that when people come to them to report they know.”

She said the workshop would also help the desk officers to know when and how to create a referral pathway where “if a person goes to a particular ministry to report cases but the officers do not have the capacity to respond, they can transfer the case to someone else who can”.

“The programme basically would help gender desk officers in the MDAs to develop forward-thinking programmes. We have emerging and new issues like technology-facilitated GBV for instance. Are the ministries aware of this? Are they programming towards that? So we need to abandon the old ways of programming and adopt new systems that are effective and sustainable,” she said.

Osowebi said the movement doesn’t stop at just training the desk officers, but would also evaluate their work on bi-annual bases to check that the knowledge they have been impacted with is being practised.

“Importantly apart from the accountability measure, the training is to collaborate with them in other programmes as well,” she added.

Debbie Dowgo, who works at the gender desk at the National Human Right Commission (NHRC), said such training is necessary to help them improve on the job.

“We live in a progressive world. Since we are progressing on other facets of life and phases, the negative aspect is also progressing. So if we are not keeping up to date and retraining ourselves and coming up with new ways to tackle issues of GBV, we will obviously be behind as the perpetrators are constantly coming up with new ways against their victim,”

“So the more we are engaging with CSOs in training, we will get to know what is happening. We will learn the new ways perpetrators are devising and the loopholes. This will help us to know where we need to be more active.”