WARIF targets 30% reduction in gender based violence

The Women At Risk International Foundation (WARIF) has unveiled plans to reduce rising wave of rape, sexual assault and human trafficking amongst young girls and women in Nigeria by 30 percent within a 12month period.

This was made known by Kemi Dasilva Ibru the founder of WARIF at the traditional birth attendants’ sensitisation workshop in Lagos, Wednesday.

“Through a well-tailored plan which we have broken down to short, medium and long-term plan, we are looking at reducing the incidence of gender based violence in the target communities by 30 percent within a 12month period” Dasilva Ibru said.

The founder of WARIF added that the foundation is launching a very special initiative known as the ‘Gatekeeper project’ to train 500 Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA) in partnership with the Aspire Coronation Trust Foundation (ACT) is set to reduce the rate of gender based violence.

“TBAs are important gatekeepers in the community, trusted and respected. Recognising their importance in the community, this project will sensitise them in supporting survivors of sexual assault and rape through sensitisation workshops, e-learning forum and monthly meetings to recognise, manage and collect data on incidences of sexual assault and rape” she said.

Also speaking during the workshop Ayodeji Ojo ACT foundation programme officer described the training as a platform for expected mothers and women attended to by TBA to report, through WARIF’s 24 hour confidential helpline, cases of gender based violence.

“We are concerned about reducing the incidence of rape and recognise signs of sexual assaults, as well as importance of reporting cases to the police and referring survivors.”

“There is a very huge gap between people that have been abused and those who come out to report these cases. It is obvious that the prevalence of sexual violence is high in the country” he added.

According to Olushesi Tajudeen National president, association of mid wives of Nigeria, “today, all TBAs in Lagos are here for a proper training on how to recognise the signs of sexual assault, rape and on how to report these cases.”

We the practitioners are from various communities and we are going back to communicate, educate and inform our communities, so as to stop sexual assault” Tajudeen said.