By Marie-Therese Nanlong

Jos – The Country Vice President and National President of the International Federation of Women Lawyers, FIDA, Nigeria, Eliana Martins has urged traditional and cultural leaders in Plateau State to serve as change agents, and advocates of women and girls rights and work collaboratively through shared knowledge of local realities in reviewing and implementing policies and practices that prevent gender-based violence in their communities.

She made the appeal in Jos, the Plateau State capital, during a two-day Annual Dialogue with Plateau State Council of Traditional Leaders on preventing violence against women and girls organized by FIDA Nigeria with the support of the Ford Foundation.

In her remark, she noted that the dialogue is a part of the implementation of a FIDA Nigeria project titled “Engagement, Coordination, and Sharing of Lessons on GBV Prevention between Religious, Traditional and Government leaders in Nigeria,” and stated, “The escalating violence against women and girls in Nigeria is fueled by a complex interplay of faith, culture, economic, political, historical, and other social factors.

“Discriminatory traditions and societal norms perpetuate negative treatment and subjugation of women and girls as second-class citizens or even as properties that can be traded. These grassroots structures promote violence against women and girls with impunity across Nigerian communities.The patriarchal nature of African society and gender stereotypes make men socially superior to women and give them the right to assert their power over women.

“In addition, traditional beliefs in Nigeria impose economic barriers to women because of their gender, leaving resource control and allocation mainly to the male gender. Traditional beliefs impose economic barriers on women, restricting resource control and allocation primarily to men. In some Nigerian communities, women are even denied family inheritances. Based on the above, this intervention is conceptualized towards enhancing its engagement with these gatekeepers by institutionalizing gender-based violence prevention structures in local communities.”

Martins explained that violence against women is any violation of a woman’s personhood, mental or physical integrity, or freedom of movement through individual acts and societal oppression, and includes all the ways a society objectifies and oppresses women, and to prevent such, there is a need for increasing dialogues, and improving coordination and collaboration among community leaders in utilizing locally led solutions in preventing violence against women and girls.

“This approach will gravitate towards a shift in attitudinal behaviours and abandonment of social norms, cultural practices that subjugate the rights of women and girls in Nigeria’s local communities… Through this dialogue, we intend to engage Tradition and Culture Leaders due to the fact that they are uniquely placed to prevent sexual and gender-based violence where they are domiciled, given their understanding of the local context and having native knowledge of predisposing factors and practices that encourage these menace to thrive.

“We expect that at the end of this dialogue, our traditional and cultural leaders will serve as change agents and advocates of women and girls’ rights and work collaboratively through shared knowledge of local realities in reviewing and implementing policies and practices that prevent GBV in their communities,” said she.

The Acting Chairperson of the Plateau State Gender and Equal Opportunities Commission, Olivia Dazyam who spoke on Understanding context, drivers, and forms of gender-based violence: The case study of Shushila and Zetta listed some of the examples of sexual and gender-based violence to include harmful traditional practices, child marriage, sexual and physical violence, and others.

She also charged the participants to look out for practices that constitute violence and prevent them in their communities.

The participants drawn from various communities in the State engaged in group discussions, presentations, and plenary as FIDA’s Senior Manager, Programme, Partnerships, and Operations Fikih Obaro asked them to understand the peculiarities of the issues in their communities, share good practices that can be emulated, and drive local-led solutions that will prevent gender-based violence.