The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Illimi Children’s Fund (ICF) has partnered with secondary school teachers in the FCT to tackle Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) cases in schools.
The organizations disclosed this at a stakeholders meeting for the commencement of the Adolescent Safety in All Spaces Pilot (ASIS) Project, on Thursday in Abuja.
The event was organised in collaboration with the FCT Secondary Education Board/Universal Basic Education Board (UBEB).
Theme of the event is, “Addressing Adolescent GBV Risks in and around School and Digital Spaces”.
Mr Egorp Emmanuel, Gender and GBV Analyst, UNFPA, who gave an overview of the ASIS project, said it is an intervention to increase learning outcomes and reduce school drop-outs in public secondary schools in the FCT.
He said that the project which is an integration of school related gender based violence and technology facilitated gender based violence is an intervention by UNFPA and it’s partners to tackle the worrisome menace.
“We believe that the proper upbringing of a child and to get the best learning outcomes as well as reduce school drop-outs is a collective approach.
“The ASIS project is a comprehensive project, it does not just end in the school but on their way to school and at home.
“So everything that predisposes an adolescent or a child to gender-related abuse will be addressed using the PTA perspective, or through the school teachers or the students themselves using their gender-based violence safety clubs,” he said.
According to him, the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) put the estimate of out of school children in Nigeria at 10.5 million, which is the highest rate in the world.
He said that one of the contributory factor to the rise in the figure could be associated with school-related gender based violence which has an effect on social, emotional and psychological development of the children.
He added that the impact of technology facilitated gender based violence were enormous as it could lead to stress, depression, anxiety or illnesses in the children.
He noted that concerted effort must be made by all stakeholders to create safe spaces for the children at all time.
For her part, Hajia Maryam Augie-Abdulmumin, Founder and Executive Director, ICF, said that gender and physical abuse has continued to have negative effect to the mental health of young people.
“The statistics on sexual and gender based violence is alarming globally not just in Nigeria, where they say one out of three persons have experienced one form of sexual or physical violence.
“Then we can imagine what the numbers are in Nigeria or Africa where we have a culture of silence.
“One of the reasons we are having this program at the school level is to know how to catch them young, to sensitize them on the effects of what sexual or physical violence can do to the future of the child.
“It doesn’t only happen to girls, it also happens to boys, so we want to ensure that these young boys and girls understand what this menace could do in their future and to curb the situation early,” she said.
She added that so far, it has trained 60 teachers and have met with 880 teachers as well as 3,300 girls in the FCT, to tackle sexual and gender based related cases.
Participants were drawn from various secondary schools in the FCT, representatives of Parents-Teachers Associations (PTA), representatives from the Ministry of Women Affairs, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, among others.
