.

By Luminous Jannamike, Abuja

A civil society organisation, Connected Development, CODE, has flayed the Kano government over the failure of the State House of Assembly to pass the Child Protection Bill.

The Chief Executive Officer of CODE, Hamzat Lawal, who described the development as disheartening, said the lawmakers gave a back seat to a law guaranteed to safeguard and protect vulnerable women and girls in society.

He stated these at a briefing in Abuja to mark the 2023 International Women’s Day and the launch of GMAA-K Learning and Impact Assessment Report.

Vanguard reports that the GMAA-K (Galvanizing Mass Action Against Gender-Based Violence in Kano State) is a project executed by CODE to address inequality gaps and drive the adoption of the Violence Against Person Prohibition (VAPP) bill and the Child Protection Law (CPL) in Kano.

Speaking, Lawal said the Kano House of Assembly had no moral justification to throw the legal frameworks away.

He said, “Today, we are celebrating International Women’s Day and calling all stakeholders across Nigeria to ‘Embrace Equality’ not by mere show of words but by actions- such as enacting policies that will protect women and girls in society.

“The (Kano) State Assembly held a public hearing on the Child Protection Bill but the house failed to pass the bills as committed to all stakeholders.

“It is disheartening to say that policies such as this that ought to protect women and children in society are given a back seat in our society, in Kano state

“Commitments from government stakeholders have not been upheld particularly the creation of more Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARC) in each Kano emirate council as Kano state has one.

“Ultimately, the Child Protection and VAPP bills need to be passed by the Assembly and signed into law. Both laws are important to any holistic intervention to address gender-based violence in Kano state.

“No major progress can be made in this fight, if there aren’t laws in place that prohibit violence against persons, women and girls; and enhance gender equality, access to justice and socio-economic empowerment of victims/survivors, and creation of sexual offenders register.”

Against this backdrop, Lawal explained that CODE, with support from the Canadian High Commission, embarked on research to highlight the impact of the GMAA-K project in Kano, lessons learnt, and recommendations for the future direction of Sexual Gender Based-Violence (SGBV) programming in the state.

Consequently, the civil society organisation urged the Kano state government to adopt and implement its GMAA-K action plan to end gender-based violence in Kano state, through policy and legal frameworks.

It also advised the government to allocate specific budget amounts according to activities from line ministries.