The Kaduna State Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE), a World Bank-supported project, has engaged Gender-Based Violence (GBV) service providers, to provide health and psychosocial services to adolescent survivors.
The Project Coordinator, Mrs Maryam Dangaji, said at the one-day event in Kaduna on Saturday, that the engagement was to strengthen working synergy with the GBV service providers.
Dangaji explained that 44 GBV service providers, drawn from 22 local government areas of the state, comprised health and social workers who were the first point of call-in communities.
She explained that the all-inclusive AGILE project seeks to support secondary school education among young adolescent girls in the state.
She said that the GBV intervention was necessary because of the high incidence of sexual harassment of young girls in school, at home and in communities.
According to her, engaging the GBV service providers will enable survivors to access timely and quality health services and psychosocial support when violated.
“This will strengthen the needed collaboration with the service providers to achieve the set objectives of the project.
“The project will also collaborate with all stakeholders to bring an end to the menace of GBV in schools and communities to enable the adolescent girls to remain in school, learn, transit and graduate.”
The GBV Officer, AGILE project, Aishatu Mohammed, pointed out that many schools would be constructed while others would be renovated under the project, which would expose adolescent girls to sexual harassment.
“Although measures have been put in place to prevent GBV in the benefiting schools, engaging the GBV service providers is a proactive step to provide quality services in case any young girl is sexually abused,” she said.
One of the resource persons, Prof. Hauwau Evelyn-Yusuf of Kaduna State University, who spoke on GBV and its effect on adolescent girls, stressed the need for all stakeholders’ support to end the menace.
According to her, survivors are often traumatised, stigmatised and the will to continue their lives affected, stressing the need for timely treatment, psychosocial support and justice.
Evelyn-Yusuf, a Professor of Criminology and Gender Studies, said that engaging the service providers was very crucial for the survivors to the get needed support to continue with their lives.
