Students tasked on reporting gender-based violence

The Chairperson of Observatory Steering Committee (OBSEC), Barrister Amina Audi Mohammed, has called on students of secondary schools in Kaduna to report cases of gender-based violence to the appropriate authority in their schools for necessary action. She made this call at the last session of the Nigeria stability and reconciliatory programme tagged “Know and Say […]

The Chairperson of Observatory Steering Committee (OBSEC), Barrister Amina Audi Mohammed, has called on students of secondary schools in Kaduna to report cases of gender-based violence to the appropriate authority in their schools for necessary action.
She made this call at the last session of the Nigeria stability and reconciliatory programme tagged “Know and Say no Project 2015” organized by the Empowering Women for Excellence Initiative in Government Secondary School Kakuri in Kaduna South Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
She said: “Students should always endeavour to report cases of gender-based violence to the appropriate authority in their schools for necessary action.
“Whenever any case of gender-based violence happens, the affected student should go first to the school counselor and thereafter, the counselor can report the case to the police. If there are injuries suffered in the process of perpetuating the violence, the police are then advised to take the victim to government hospital before charging the culprit of the violence to court.
“The key message here is that students should not be silent whenever violence is perpetuated against them and throughout the four weeks’ session, we have been teaching them to go about reporting such cases. They should open up and report the matter to the appropriate authority. If not, such violence will continue and the victims will continue to suffer in silence without anyone knowing.
“If the violence happens in the school, the students should report the matter to the school counselor, but if it happens at home they should report to their parents,” Barrister Amina said.
In her remarks, the Programme Officer, Administration and Logistics of the Empowering Women for Excellence Initiative, Joy Anthony, said during the period of the four weeks’ programme, the students have been exhaustively taught what gender-based violence is such that they can now teach their other colleagues.
“This programme has generally boosted the morale of the students and I am now assured that they understand their right more than ever before and will be ready to defend it.
“Students undergo violence all the time. It could be domestic and often caused by their parents, relations, friends and even their teachers,” she said.
“Unfortunately students don’t speak up whenever they are violated and they often don’t know if the act against them is actually violence. But now they know and have been equipped on how to go about it,” she said.
Anthony added that next year, 2016, will be dedicated to monitoring and evaluation programme to determine how the students have been able to use the knowledge they have gathered within the four weeks of the programme and how they have been able to tackle the issues of gender-based violence.
She noted that although gender-based violence is mostly perpetuated against girls, boys too are also victims directly or indirectly, pointing out that the boys could either be direct sufferer of violence or that the victims could be their sisters, friends of class mates hence the reason for intensively teaching both male and female students what they need to know and the actions to take whenever gender-based violence occurs.