The Abiodun Essiet Initiative for Girls (AEIG) has called on health care providers in Nigeria to ensure prompt responses to victims of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in their health facilities.

The call was made during a one-day capacity training for health care workers and members of the Ward Development Committees in Abuja, the country’s Capital.

Josephine Emeghoghena, who represented the Executive Director of AEIG, said the workshop was aimed at improving the knowledge of the health care workers on rapid response to SGBV cases.

According to the Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS), nine percent of women aged 15 to 49 had suffered sexual assault at least once in their lifetime and 31 percent had experienced physical violence.

‘We are here to sensitise and create more SGBV awareness and train health care workers in primary health care centres in Gwagwalada and Kuje area councils of the FCT on how to tackle the menace’, she said.

‘We want to build their capacity on how to effectively address SGBV and how to attend to victims who report cases to them.

‘The cardinal message is that we all and not just health workers should take SGBV cases seriously by always reporting such whenever it takes place in our environment’.

Also speaking was the Chairman of the Ward Development Committee, Gerald Telah, who said the committee encouraged people to report cases of SGBV to community leaders.

He added that it was also important for members of the communities to be security conscious and mindful of how they leave their wards so as not to fall prey to perpetrators.

40 participants drawn from the 20 wards across the two area councils were taken through the roles of health care centres and ward health committees in promoting access to efficient health care service delivery and also the processes involved in managing SGBV cases that are brought to their facilities.

Photo source: Abiodun Essiet Initiative for Girls