Yobe understudies social protection initiative as expert craves better Borno

The Yobe government has understudied the Rwandan Shock-Responsive Mechanism (SRM) for the social protection of vulnerable groups in the state.   The week-long tour, led by the Commissioner for Finance and Economic Planning, Muhammad Abatcha Geidam, provided an opportunity for knowledge-sharing and other discussions on policy strategies with the Mayor of Nyanza, Southern District of Rwanda.                                             

The DG added: “The Rwandan programme is aimed at strengthening shock-responsive mechanisms on social protection of citizens, as well as responding to  shocks of other crisis, including the over a decade Boko Haram insurgency.”

IN a related development, a Scotland-based security expert, Elizabeth Macleod, has expressed concern over the silence and non-reporting by parents and guardians of sexually abused girls to the police.
  
She spoke at a one-day workshop for stakeholders, organised by her team, in partnership with Borno State Police Command, in Maiduguri.

Macleod, who is also a Police Adviser to the British Council in Nigeria, encouraged girls, parents and guardians to always build confidence and dismiss fear while making decisions to report sexual abusers to the police.

The security expert, who has been working with stakeholders in rural communities of Borno for about two years, identified cultural and religious influences as the major challenges why victims of sexual violence remain silent in most cases.

 She, therefore, urged community members, parents and guardians to rebuild the confidence of affected girls to break their silence and ensure that culprits were prosecuted.
 
She insisted that people must come together to police their communities and make their communities safer for girls, adding that both the community and police must work together for the safety of girls in the society.
  
Also speaking, DCP Ahmed Bello explained that the workshop was to build the capacity of personnel as they resume in various communities, where the presence of police was minimal due to insurgency-related problems in the past.
  
Bello said the command was returning to communities to carry out its constitutional responsibility across the 27 council areas of the state. He added that the force had created a sexual and gender-based violence desk in all divisional headquarters to deal with the problem.