By: Valentine Adese (JP),
In order to move from rhetoric to action, the Women’s Rights Advancement And Protection Alternative (WRAPA) has formally launched WRAPA Women Resilience Platform in Plateau State, to help scale up the visibility of commitments from Faith and Culture Leaders in the fight against, Violence Against Women And Girls (VAWG) in the state.
The launching, which took place today, at the Palace of the Adagwom Kabong-Kazumung in Rukuba road in Jos, saw the Plateau State Governor, Rt. Hon. Simon Bako Lalong, represented by Hon. Irimiya Warr, the Commissioner for Special Duties, Royal Fathers and other dignitaries in attendance.
In his remarks at the occasion, Governor Simon Bako Lalong, like other speakers, hailed the launching of WRAPA Women of Resilience, while calling on the people of Plateau State, especially the women, to take advantage of all the Laws concerning violence passed and assented to by his administration.
He said, “We hate any form of violence against anybody, especially, on women and the girl child hence, we passed those Laws. We want our homes to be free of violence as this will further bring peace to the state”.
While welcoming the women and other dignitaries to the launching, WRAPA Senior Project Officer, Dinma Nwanye, in her welcoming speech explained that, the Violence Against Women and Girls Accountability Project is a two-year project, implemented in FCT, Jigawa, Katsina and Plateau state by WRAPA, to support the voice and agency of women and girls to speak out on all forms of violence against women and girls and work with the Faith and Culture leaders to extract accountability from VAWG perpetrators.
Adding that, “The movement is established to identify and respond to VAWG case reports in their communities by scaling up reported cases to duty bearers, using the response protocol co-created by the community stakeholders and the project monitoring and documentation of VAWG incident reports and interventions in communities, based on commitments made by Faith and Culture leaders.
“The body will visit families and have convenings that increase awareness, strengthen trust and provide access to survivals, who may not be opportune to seek and obtain formal adjudication”.
In an interview with the Plateau State WRAPA Program Officer, Ruth Abwo, she explained that, “For quite some time now, we know that, so many women have been violated and they have remained quiet. So, the importance of this gathering today, is to encourage the women to speak out. With this enlightenment, they now know that, there is a Safe Space. The WRAPA Women of Resilience are now their immediate Safe Space, where they can go and share their worries so that, the Women of Resilience can now take it up to the responsibility leaders.
“In the past, they go directly to the police station, but now, they will just meet these carefully selected women in their communities”.
You would recall that, WRAPA VAWG Accountability Project, is been supported by Ford Foundation, as a two-year project, implemented to challenge norms that infringe on the rights of women and girls and build the capacity of faith and cultural leaders to demand accountability from perpetrators of VAWG.
SEE OTHER PICTURES FROM THE EVENT BELOW:-
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