Mrs Mary Tanko, the Director, National Orientation Agency (NOA) in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), has called for collective action to expose perpetrators of Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) in the country.
The director made the call on Monday in Abuja at the opening of a four-day media dialogue with media practitioners on “Ethical Reporting and Advocacy to Eliminate VAWG in the FCT.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the training was organised by the European Union, in collaboration with the United Nations Spotlight Initiative, supported by the United Nations Children’s Trust Fund (UNICEF).
According to Tanko, VAWG has been on the rise in recent times.
“The rise of violence against women and girls calls for action, a collective action to ensure that the cases are reduced.
“NOA is involved in this training so that members of the grassroot can be carried along, stigmatisation issue has also made so many victims of VAWG not to speak out,” she said.
Mrs Ike-Jacinta Ngozi, Desk Officer, Gender Based-Violence (GBV) response team, FCT Social Development Secretariat urged the media to collaborate with relevant organisations to end the menace.
Also speaking, Mrs Khadijah-Ibrahim Nuhu, a Spotlight Initiative said the objective of the training was to increase participants’ knowledge on ethical reporting.
Nuhu, also a communication consultant with UNICEF, said the dialogue was also to engage participants on gender inequality discourse as well as change negative social norms about VAWG.
“The dialogue is also to increase participation of Spotlight Initiative Media Network members in advocacy and solution journalism.”
Nuhu further said that the organisers would be collaborating with the media for the next three months to turn out stories on VAWG.
Mr Geoffrey Njoku, Communication Specialist UNICEF, said that reports had shown that VAWG was on the increase and so the initiative decided to ensure that the media focused more on ethical reporting. (NAN)
