Ms Buky Williams, the Executive Director, Education as a Vaccine (EVA), an NGO, says community based conversations and awareness on dangers of violence against women and girls were key to ending the menace.
Williams said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday.
She said EVA had continued to inform communities on the benefits of giving women and girls access to Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) by changing their beliefs.
“Additionally dialogues with community leaders on the importance of recognising that women and girls need to be able to know when to have children is critical.
“The dialogues and access of information have shown that their communities are healthier when women and girls are able to plan their families,” she said.
Williams, who condemned the excuse of alleged nudity as causes of rape against girls, said that communities’ orientation had been disabused on that.
“This was important because in some of the surveys at the community level, some community believed that what a person was wearing led to the abuse or harm.
“And we used this storytelling project supported by the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives to show that the belief was wrong and we must believe and support survivors.”
The Executive Director asserted the success of using education to change the narratives and orientation of communities on Gender Based Violence (GBV).
According to her, it is a turning point for many at community level, the impact of the dialogues, access of information and services and use of appropriate family planning methods has helped families.
Williams said that they also supported women especially young mothers with income generating activities through trainings, forming cooperatives and loans to support them and their families.
Describing Community leaders as change agents, Williams said that they had seen a better response to issues of family planning and domestic violence by working with trusted community structures.
“We have seen a better response to issue of family planning, domestic violence, sexual violence and harmful practices such as early marriages and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).”
She explained that communities had become response and protection actors in their communities breaking the culture of silence, ensuring cases were reported and prosecuted as well as abandoning FGM and giving girls access to school.(NAN)
