THE Federal Ministry of Women’s Affairs has said it would engage whistleblowers and create mobile courts to combat Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in Nigeria.
The ministry also vowed to enforce the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) Act.
The Minister of Women Affairs Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye disclosed this during a press briefing on Monday, September 25.
She said the efforts were part of the ministry’s new approach to tackling issues around GBV.
The mobile courts will be established in all states, she stated.
“We don’t want advocacy anymore before mobile courts because we’ve been advocating, spending money, and it’s yielding nothing. Something like female genital mutilation was within five states before now. A lot of billions have been spent trying to curb it, but as we speak, it has increased to nine states. So what does that tell you? The method was not working and is still not working,” the minister said.
She said while the ministry would continue to carry out advocacy programmes, local means would be deployed, including the engagement of town criers to disseminate information in native languages so that citizens in rural areas would be more aware of the consequences of their actions.
The ICIR reports that the Federal Government has repeatedly promised to establish specialised courts to hasten the trial of SGBV in Nigeria, but there has not been enough action to match the promises.
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