BEGINNING from next week, multiple award-winning anti-rape activist, Mrs Itoro Eze Anaba, will be feeding you with everything you need to know about the societal menace called rape, right here on Lipstick.

Itoro is a lawyer who has been actively involved in the promotion and protection of women’s rights in Nigeria, in recognition of which work she was invited to participate in the US Department of State International Visitors Program on Trafficking in Women and Children; as well as in the exchange program of the Law Society of England and Wales.

In 2005, she received a scholarship from the American Association of University Women (AAUW) for her LLM Masters in Law programme at the American University, Washington College of Law, Washington DC where she specialized in Gender and the Law. On her return to Nigeria, she established Partnership for Justice, a non governmental organization with a mission to provide an innovative range of services to promote and protect human rights in Nigeria.

She is presently the Managing Partner at Mirabel Centre, a safe haven for abused women and girls in Lagos, Nigeria.
Itoro’s achievements in the women’s rights movement are inexhaustible.

She is reputed for drafting the first ever Domestic Violence Bill in Nigeria and engaging in advocacy campaign for its passage into law in 12 states and at the National Assembly

She also established Blue Ribbon, the first ever all-male advocacy group campaigning for women’s rights in Nigeria
Another landmark is West Africa’s second and Nigeria’s first-ever sexual assault referral centre in Nigeria, the Mirabel Centre, which she co-founded to support survivors of rape and sexual assault.

Itoro is a researcher and an international consultant.