SGBV: Focus on survivors, experts urges Health workers, Traditional Leaders

Blessing Bature, Abuja 

Anti-gender-based violence experts have urged the Nigerians, traditional leaders and primary healthcare workers to focus more on victims and survivors rather than on perpetrators while dealing with sexual and gender based violence SGBV.

The Project Officer, Abiodun Essiet Initiative for girls, Josephine Emeghoghena, who represented the Executive director of the organization made the call at a one day capacity workshop, gwagwalada Area Council, Abuja, urging Nigerians to take the issues of SGBV seriously.

She said, "we are here to sensitize and create more awareness, train health care workers in the primary healthcare sector in FCT, on how to address gender and sexual based violence and to build their capacity on how to treat victims when it comes to report of SGBV.

"Today we're training those in Gwagwalada and Kuje and its expected that all Nigerians not just the health workers alone should take SGBV cases seriously and report such case to the appropriate authorities when it happened in our environment, they should not keep quiet, they should act fast because lives are involved."

 

"Also if there are issues of spousal battery, rape, the person's live is in danger and there's tendency that death may occur at the end we are to act fast as Nigerians and treat it as violence", she said.

Also, Dr Laz Eze, Public Health Physical and CEO, Talk health aja said the role of primary healthcare service delivery is not only to tack sexual and gender based violence but also prevention, care and of course mental support for sexual and gender based violence.

According to him, primary healthcare is the closest services to the people and is something that should be acceptable, affordable, available at all times because it has community components inter sectoral collaboration which means people of different sectors coming together to provide services to the victims that's why all those element, Health education and promotion, delivery of highest possible quality of health care services are things the participants at this workshop today needs to know, he said.

In the same vein, the chairman, health workers ward who double as the chairman of chairmen FCT chapter, Jelaz Tela said they provide oversight function for FCT primary healthcare and the association mobilized people to get primary healthcare, to also assist the clinics to meet up with the basic of primary healthcare.

"In respect to sexual and gender based violence, we sensitize the community first to be security conscious to know the time they go out and come in and how they leave in their wards. So we sensitize communities and encouraged them that when such thing happened, they should not keep quiet but they should report to the community leaders first, then we'll involved the party concern and address the issues.