NAN-H-178
Women
By Martha Agas
Jos, Feb. 9, 2017(NAN) Violence against women and girls is covered up, denied and grossly under-reported, the UN has said.
Mr Peter Mancha, its Deputy Manager on UN Women, Peace and Security Programmes, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Jos, that most victims conceal attacks to avoid societal stigmatization.
“Our findings further showed that other women do not have access to reporting mechanisms and would just suffer in silence,” he said.
He said that a baseline survey was conducted in four Local Governments in three target states of Gombe, Adamawa, and Plateau, where UN sought to know reasons for women’s low participation in peace building processes.
“We found that the low self esteem labeled on women, through trivialization of violence, patriarchal society and other harmful traditional practices on them, impeded their productivity and self confidence.
“It also impeded their desire to participate in peace and security building processes.”
Mancha said that the study, which was conducted by the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, also noted a low level of awareness about gender equality policies, legislation and the existence of the UNCSR 1325 and its national action plan.
UNCSR 1325 is a a resolution designed to reaffirm the importance of the role of women in the prevention, resolution of conflicts, peace negotiation amongst other components
To address the problem, he said that the capacity of media personnel in gender, conflict sensitivity and peace building was being enhanced through training.
The official said that 28 journalists, drawn from the Federal Capital Territory and northern states, including Adamawa, Plateau and Gombe, were trained trained between 2014 and 2016.
“The training strengthened their capacity on gender equality, women’s leadership, networking, sharing of resources and compliance of best practices on gender as well as the role of women in conflict resolution, peace building and security issues,” he said. (NAN)
MAA/ETS
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Edited by Ephraims Sheyin