Women have greater roles to play in addressing insurgency

A non-governmental organisation, Cleen Foundation, on Monday said women have greater roles to play in addressing insurgency in the country due to their closeness to youths.

Mrs Blessing Abiri, a Senior Programme Officer with the foundation, said this in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.

The foundation seeks to promote public safety, justice and gender related issues. According to her, the role of women in solving insurgency is critical because these insurgents are mostly from nucleus family and women play a lot of roles in the life of their children.

"This is a challenge women should take, they should play a vital role in bringing sanity to the young ones," she said. Abiri said that a national survey carried out in the 36 states showed that annually, domestic violence against women was on the increase.

She said, "The increase is in two ways: more women are now aware of their rights and are reporting crimes against them. The other is that more women are now becoming conscious that they need to prevent fatalities in their marriages, thereby breaking the silence.

"Though, our society do not frown much at light punishment for women, but one slap can lead to two and it goes on and on till it becomes a full-fledged violence. Most women do not report such cases because they want to keep their families or avoid divorce.

"Many women don't report violence against them because they want to avoid discussing their family issues in public. This makes violence against women to be on the increase,’’ she said.

Abiri said that the organisation had devised another means of settling dispute, which she said, was more convenient and preferable.

"Cleen Foundation has devised a means of settling disputes, aside from the court or legal means, this is empowering the traditional institution in arbitration of domestic violence. Through traditional institution’s intervention, there are some domestic violent cases that do not need to be reported to the police.

"From the survey we conducted, we asked the respondents who they will like to report to in time of domestic violence-- between the police and the traditional institution. Most respondents opted for traditional institutions.

"From the report, we also got to know that many women would not like their husband to be arrested on account of disputes, they only want them to be cautioned against violence,’’ she said.

The foundation programme officer said that traditional institution would help women to resolve their domestic issues within themselves, and we consider this as best option.

She said, "We are happy to note that some of those cases treated by the traditional institutions are resolved amicably. Gender has always been a controversial issue that is germane in the society. We do study crimes against women with the support of the Nigerian Police.

"This support is traced back to the days of former Inspector General of Police, Mr Tafa Balogun. We investigate the gender-based issues that affects the participation of women in mobile force unit, where we discovered some discriminative policies as regards the requirements.

"We then called on the IG for a redress and the removal of the act. The act, which stipulated that when a policewoman wants to get married, the would be husband should be investigated by the police-- to know if he is of a good character. This does not apply to men. This is highly discriminatory against women in the Nigeria Police," she said.