From Joseph Asegba, Yola
Adamawa State has recorded 774 cases of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) between 2020 and the first half of this year.
Report has it that 297 of the perpetrators of the crime have been convicted.
The disclosure was made by the Technical Lead of Managing Conflict in Nigeria (MCN) Programme, Dr. Okohi Lekiwo at the opening of a five-day capacity workshop in Yola recently.
Participants during the workshop were doctors, nurses and counselors on management of sexual and gender based violence.
The workshop was organized by Adamawa State Primary Healthcare Department Agency in collaboration with MCV and funded by the British Council through the European Union.
Dr. Lekiwo said the workshop was also organized to educate participants on how to identify and provide emergency treatment for the nation.
“Sexual and Gender-Based violence is occurring more in communities because of the absence of primary health personnel who are closer to the people, the survivors will be gathered to enable them to prosecute perpetrators,” he said.
He added that this would help in gathering and managing early evidences.
He stressed that the situation to educate the menace is to ensure persecutions of perpetrators to serve as deterrent to others.
He lamented that: “The reason why violent cases persist is mostly because perpetrators go free.”
In his remarks, Dr. Bashir Suleiman and the executive chairman of the agency said the parastatal is positively responding to sexual and gender-based violence in the state.
Dr. Suleiman noted that the core objective of the training was to create awareness and empower participants with knowledge on how to easily detect suspects and victims of sexual and gender-based violence.
Our correspondent reports that 50 participants were drawn from all the 21 local government areas of the state who attended the training.
