Olanrewaju Lawal,Birnin -Kebbi
The Wife of the Kebbi State Governor, Dr. Zainab Shinkafi Bagudu, has advocated for the grassroot campaigns against rape and sexual violence in Nigeria.
Bagudu stated this yesterday during her participation in a digital Summit organized by the Movement Again Rape and Sexual Violence (MARS-V).
She explained that, the grassroots advocacy needs to be stepped up, in order to yield positive results. The advocacy takes high level of discussions about the Violence against Persons (Prohibition) VAPP and Child-Right Acts.
According to her, “it is essential to note that, the whole issue is about people’s culture. There is a general culture of silence among people at the grassroots.
“We need to constantly engage the rural gatekeepers at the grassroots; the religious and traditional rulers, because they are major facilitators to domesticating and implementing laws against sexual violence.
“Secondly, in order to change the mindset that female genital mutilation is wrong and people are supposed not to mutilate a girl-child, we have to engage them very well.
“Although we have tried in recent times, it was a bit better, but more efforts need to be put there, because there are major obstacles that we have faced.
“Even those that have fair bit of understanding, have their own believe and interpretation of verses of the holy Quran, so we are finding ways of getting that mindset change,” she said.
Speaking on the topic, “Obstacles to invoking chance in Gender based laws”, the wife of the Kebbi State governor noted that the reformed penal code laws for northern states is different while comparing with what is obtainable in the southern parts of the country.
The VAPP Act, according to Dr. Bagudu, “is an improvement of pre-existing laws, in that it considers a lot of things that the other law did not treat, aside from the punishment.
“It was also imperative that northern states that practice the penal code, improve on that, so that they can be able adapt the VAPP act, and so many other issues”.
She added: “Recently in Kebbi State, Governor Abubakar Atiku Bagudu has presented the last bill to the state’s House of Assembly, alongside the Child-Right Act and the VAPP Act for hearing and passage into law.
“There is hope that, the bills will see the light of the day, since the reformed penal code has already been adapted in the state.”
She further commended the concerted efforts by the civil societies and advocates, including the development partners and agencies like the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), when the current outcry on GBV started.
She said,” although Nigeria is huge country, but there is need to categorize it into zones, so that there would be a way in which everybody can have a voice to speak to a peculiar need of their area.”