Lara Adejoro Islamic scholars from northern Nigeria have called for interventions and preventive measures to address the increasing cases of Gender-Based Violence in the region. They made the call on Saturday in Abuja at a one-day workshop for Muslim leaders in preventing GBV organised by the Development Research and Projects Centre in collaboration with the Centre for Islamic Civilisation and Interfaith, Bayero University Kano, and supported by the Ford Foundation. The workshop was designed to mobilise Islamic scholars in northern Nigeria to lend their voices and use their pulpits to promote the prevention of GBV in northern Nigeria, particularly in Kaduna, Kano, Jigawa and Zamfara states.
According to the United Nations, GBV is violence committed against a person because of his or her sex or gender. It is forcing another person to do something against his or her will through violence, coercion, threats, deception, cultural expectations, or economic means. According to Dataphyte, in the northern part of Nigeria, the Salama Sexual Assault Referral Centre in Kafanchan, Kaduna State, recorded 3,977 cases of sexual and gender-based violence since its inception in 2019.
Speaking at the workshop, the Executive Director of the dRPC, Dr Judith-Ann Walker, represented by the Project Director, Dr Stanley Ukpai, said the growing cases of gender-based violence in the region are increasingly becoming an issue of concern, making it imperative for the intervention. “The project aims to p.
