DON tasks Lagos on gender machinery

Director Legal Research and Resource Development Centre, Prof. Ayodele Atsenuwa has charged the Lagos State government to strengthen gender machinery. 

Also, Dr Bob Arnot, National Programme Manager, Justice for All (J4A) has urged the government at all levels to focus more on how to eradicate the menace of sexual assault and ‎to open more Mirabel centres for victims of sexual assault.
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The center provides survivors an opportunity to gain access to free forensic medical, legal and counseling services.‎

They said gender-based violence is not an ordinary violence, that there is need for holistic approach to tackle it.

They both made the submissions at a symposium on gender-based violence held at the Sheraton Hotels, Ikeja organised by the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team (DSVRT) in commemoration of the World Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

According to Atsenuwa, holistic approach is not just for an individual to tackle domestic violence, adding that there is need for a strategic framework.

“It is not enough to have good law without implementation.

“Why is the law not leading on its promises? We need to develop guideline. States have to send message to all actors or zero tolerance to start behaviour modification early and ensure that curriculum of sexual harassment policy be implement”, she said.

The professor of law therefore urged the state government to work on sentence guideline, and also admonished non -governmental organizations (NGOs) to know the guidelines.

“We need criminal justice reform for guidelines for prosecution. Sentencing guideline is one of the problematic area for cases because different people come with different cases. Number of cases, no of articles have been used to demonstrate the inconsistencies and unfortunate indefensible ‎instances sentencing for sexual offences”, she stated.

Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode therefore launched the state’s guidelines called the Domestic Violence Protocol for Responder Agencies.
The Domestic Violence Protocol provides guidelines and establishes standards for relevant agencies such as the police, judiciary officials, health care providers, social workers and all other agencies handling domestic violence incidents.

Ambode who was represented by his deputy, Dr. Idayat Adegbule stated that domestic violence remains a devastating public health crisis around the world and that statistics reveal that one in four women will be physically or sexually assaulted by a partner at some point in her lifetime.

The governor said despite the fact that Lagos had made significant progress in changing laws and attitudes, providing support to survivors, and reducing the incidence of domestic violence, more work still needs to be done.