Foundation To Partner Police To Curb Gender, Sexual-Based Violence

An NGO, Ikra Foundation for Women and Youth Development (IFWYD) says it will partner with the Bauchi state command of the Nigeria Police Force to curb Gender, Sexual-Based Violence (GSBV) in the state.

Mrs Amina Garuba, Executive Director of the Foundation, stated this at a meeting of the organization on Tuesday with the police command and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Bauchi.

Garuba said that the Foundation had written to the state command on GSBV and the need for the partnership, which would provide stakeholders an avenue to strengthen the capacities of key players in the fight.

Garuba said that final copies of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP) law would be made available to the state command and all Divisional Police Officers (DPOs) in the state.

“The Foundation will train all the state DPOs and Area commands on GSBV. We will provide the VAPP law to all the participants for better understanding and proper implementation of the law.

“GSBV requires collective effort to ensure that perpetrators are brought to book,” she said.

In her contribution, the Bauchi state Coordinator of UNFPA, Ms Debora Tabara, said that the UN agency was committed to the training of service providers.

“UNFPA globally led advocacy on GSBV and it built the capacity of service providers, such as health workers, lawyers, police, social welfare workers, among others, in line with the protocol’’, she said.

In her response, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Bauchi state command, Ms Rose Chollom, said that the command was committed to fighting GSBV, assuring that no GSBV cases would go untreated.

She said that the command had designed a series of awareness campaigns on community radio stations across the state, including outlining training and retraining of officers and men of the NPF to equip officers and men of the NPF on the GSBV law.