The Community Awareness and Development Initiative (CADI) has trained 150 Imams on ways to address Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and other harmful practices across communities in Sokoto State, northwest Nigeria.
Development Diaries learnt that the training was carried out in partnership with United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and he government of Sokoto State.
Chief Executive Officer of CADI, Sani Umar-Jabbi, said that the three-day training was aimed at enhancing participants’ capacity on modern knowledge on GBV and other harmful practices.
From forced and early marriages to the physical, mental or sexual assault on a woman, nearly three in ten Nigerian women have experienced physical violence by age 15, according to the Nigeria Democratic Health Survey (NDHS).
Umar-Jabbi explained that most Islamic scholars in rural communities lack access to quality educational materials relevant to handling issues concerning sexual abuses and other forms of violence against women, adding that the training availed them the opportunity to present papers on topics that provided an overview of Shari’ah intelligence.
‘It is an ongoing effort aimed at equipping scholars and the society to effectively assist victims of sexual and gender-based violence in their respective communities’, he said.
‘The imams serve as great councillors to community groups. As such, their training on ways to offer services and referrals of survivors and other forms of violence against women will go a long way in assisting the authorities’.
In her statement, the Permanent Secretary, Sokoto State Ministry of Women and Children Affairs, Hajia A’isha Dantsoho, commended CADI for the training and noted that the state government, in collaboration with donor agencies, had established a sexual assault referral centre.
She, however, urged civil society organisations to collaborate with other key stakeholders in checkmating the increasing trend of GBV cases by exposing perpetrators and monitoring survivors.
Source: NAN
Photo source: EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid
