The Permanent Secretary in the Niger State Ministry of Women Affairs, Hajiya Kaltum Dauda Rufai said the state has recorded 175 rape cases between January 2021 and July 2022.
Dauda Rufai, who is the Secretary of the Gender-Based Violence Management Committee in the state disclosed this at a one-day Anti-Gender Based Violence close-out workshop organized with support from the Nigeria Academy of Letters in Minna on Tuesday.
“Within the period, 65 cases of husband and wife battering, 67 cases of street hawking, 21 cases of forced marriage and 3, 500 cases of withdrawal of children had been recorded.
“Out of 77 prosecutions, only 8 convictions had been recorded while 60 cases were still under trial,” Rufai said.
She identified poverty as one of the factors that exposed many out-of-school children in the state to molestation and other forms of abuse, calling for continuous support from traditional and religious leaders on sensitization against Gender-Based Violence (GBV).
The permanent secretary explained that part of the success of the committee included the dethronement of a traditional ruler by the emir of Minna for forceful marriage in his domain.
Also speaking, Mrs. Anne C. Nwakpudav of Rayuwa Sexual Assault Referral Centre said 37 GBV cases were received in January this year alone in the state.
Citing data from the World Health Organisation (WHO), the
The wife of the Niger State governor and chairperson of the Anti-Gender Based Violence Management Committee, Dr. Amina Abubakar Bello, said three in every 10 women in Nigeria had experienced physical violence by the age of 15.
The wife of the governor said referral centers would be established in all the 22 general hospitals in the state to address the issue of rape and other abuses, and advocated the enactment of laws against GBV.
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