By Elvis Torkuma. Project Officer.
We carried out need assessment in Kabusa a community within the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja Municipal Area Council, (AMAC). The need assessment was on Gender Based Violence, (GBV), the report showed that market women and sales girls suffers severe physical violence in this area. We then drafted a project plan on how to carry out legal literacy training with these women and girls. We proposed through Community leaders, Market women association and faith based organizations for a one day training on gender based violence in this Community, our proposed project was approved by these strong and influential community based institutions.
We then organized project implementation team, I, project officer, legal officer, Ellen Onugha, Media, Leslie Whyte and money bag as I do call him, Mr yemi, financial director, we did the agenda and sent to the above stated institutions. The meeting was held at the market square in other to make it easy women to attend, more than eighty( 80) market Women attended, there was good music on arrival, we started with registration but it became overwhelming due to the crowd, we then did brief introduction of key participants like the women leaders and our team.
The market women leader did the opening prayer and declared the event open, Miss Ellen the legal officer facilitated the first session on domestic violence, what to do violence occur, where to report violation and our free legal services, she was very clear and patient as she explained everything in details to them, after her session the women were happy and excited, after her session Mr Yemi was not left out, he also contributed on the same issue of domestic violence and reason why women must stand up against and fight for their rights, after his session, I also contributed by explaining what domestic violence is but in pigin English in other to enable them understand it more. The next session was questions, comments and contributions, it was an amazing experience as most women came out to share their experiences on domestic violence, gender inequality and lack of laws and policies to protect women and the girl child, many of them thank Lawyers Alert for bringing such information at no cost to them.
After comments, answers, contributions and suggestions, Ellen the legal officer then told the market women that Lawyers Alert will leave contact numbers for them to enable them report issues of gender based violence and other human rights abuses to us, she also assured them that Lawyers Alert will provide them with legal representations, mediation and psycho socio supports, this information further threw these market women into celebration mood, they thank God for directing us to them, before we could even finish the training, we had received more than ten ,(10) unverified issues of gender based violence. Market women leader and her team also brought three women for us to provide them with legal assistance narrating how their husbands have turned them into punching bags; we received the information and ended Kabusa Market Women training on gender based violence.
Lawyers Alert hereby puts our readers on notice that this article is based on the writers opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of the organization except otherwise stated.