Seeing my young classmate married off stirred my interest in GSBV advocacy – Yushau

Born in Maguzawa community on the outskirts of Hayi Rigasa in Kaduna State, Yushau Muhammad Abubakar, 29, the founder and executive director of Enhancing Community Action for Peace and better Health Initiative (e-CAPH), took an interest in fighting sexual assault and gender-based violence when his primary school classmate was wedded off at a young age, […]

Born in Maguzawa community on the outskirts of Hayi Rigasa in Kaduna State, Yushau Muhammad Abubakar, 29, the founder and executive director of Enhancing Community Action for Peace and better Health Initiative (e-CAPH), took an interest in fighting sexual assault and gender-based violence when his primary school classmate was wedded off at a young age, killing her dream of becoming a nurse.

“There are these two ladies, Amina and Zaituna, we always compete academically in my class, where the first, second and third positions come out between us occasionally. Amina wanted to be a nurse in the future,” Abubakar stated.

On a fateful day, he was told some men came to pick her up as her hand had been given out for marriage.

But too little to grasp what it means, a few months after the incident, he saw her selling ‘fura da nono’ which to him signified the end of her education.

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“The community, which is predominantly Fulani, had a custom of marrying girls off at an age and sometimes promised out for marriage as early as from birth to the son of another family.”

The event etched a desire in him to bring an end to the practice that truncated the vision of girls being educated in rural communities.

But doing this, he also had his own battles to scale through school as his parents were not buoyant enough to send him through to secondary school, as such, he had to move out of the village to fend for himself.

 “I was motivated because the issue of early marriage affected me directly; it happened to my classmates, colleagues and relatives. It pained me and I have the passion and feeling to do something about it. It was one of the things that made me leave my village and move to the city where I didn’t know anybody. I once worked in a bread factory where I slept on a sack and went to school on an empty stomach. This was driven by my passion.”

While taking a walk through the throes of life, he always thought becoming a soldier would be the right profession to enable him to convince families in underserved communities to allow the girl-child to complete their education before marrying them off.

But along the way, he was introduced to volunteerism. “That was when it dawned on me that the military was not where I could make much impact, so I went to join a civil society organization. I volunteered since 2009 and I started mine in 2011.”

He said through the organization he named Enhancing Community Action for Peace and better Health Initiative (e-CAPH), he tried to create awareness of gender, sexual-based violence, policy advocacy and engagement with leaders in rural communities on the need to educate the girl-child.

But bringing behavioural changes to communities was not a kid’s glove affair, he stated that his advocacy was, at first, viewed as an agent of Western countries.

“The most difficult thing is changing something people believe in. When we started, people saw us as agents of the West who wanted to bring something new to the community as they had not seen the negative part of what they were doing, especially in the underserved communities.

 “When you tell them not to marry their daughters off at an early age; when you talk to them to take action against sexual harassment and all those things, they see you as somebody who wants to embarrass and bring shame to the community because these things happen which they bury within them. So when you say they should take legal action, there is a lot of rejection from the community.”

But through community sensitization and awareness, such tags have changed over the years as he is now seen as an agent of change and most people that were against him have joined the crusade in the fight against GSBV and the promotion of girl-child education.

He added that this has led to the reduction of rape cases in communities he had intervened.

On response to his advocacy, he said, “Whenever we go out for community sensitisation and find out that issues around sexual violence are settled at the level of community leader, I always talk to the community and they give their reasons for such as taken to avoid shame or to protect their religion. However, when you look at the actions recommended by religious texts, the punishment is harsher than the judgement carried out.

“So, you will realise that it is just personal interest and cultural belief mixed with religion in an attempt to protect personal interest. So, people have begun to ask questions, understand and begin to fight this menace based on what we have been doing in terms of orientation, community awareness and policy advocacy.”

His dedication and hard work to end GSBV in Kaduna State led to his recognition by the state government in 2021.

He said this was due to the measures taken by his organisation to reduce cases of GSBV which spiked during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020.

“We came out to fight against that by providing an alternative way to report cases via phone calls and technology to ensure that people are corrected. Based on that effort, the Kaduna State Government recognized our efforts through the wife of the then governor, Ummi El-Rufai.”

 “The award is for the track record of what we have been doing for years. Immediately after the award, the United Nations Population Fund recognised our efforts through the Ministry if Humanitarian Services and gave me another award as the best actor contributing to end sexual violence and promoting childbirth spacing in Kaduna State,” Yushau said.

In the same year, he won a grant from the UNFPA under its Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) project which sponsored 150 girls to learn how to sew renewable pads as well as other skills.

Abubakar, who is a final year student of Usmanu DanFodio University Teaching Hospital (HND) Health Information Management, said on some occasions he gets questioned on why he is engaging in female-related advocacy.

He stated that such questions do not bother him as the passion to end gender and sexual violence in the state and across northern Nigeria keeps him going.

On what he wants in the future, he said he hoped to work in an environment that allows him to influence or make policies to bring the girl-child to their potential while removing the societal and traditional norms that prevent them from attaining their aims.