EMPOWER WOMEN TO BE FREE FROM SHADOW PANDEMIC OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND POVERTY WITH ME

COVID 19 pandemic threatens the lives of all, but women and girls are disproportionately affected. The very measures to keep people safe leave women and girls very vulnerable to domestic violence and abject poverty.

Sexual and domestic violence with abject poverty have become a shadow pandemic for women and girls as a result of COVID 19. As people in lockdown, staying at home, women’s mean of livelihood in Nigeria which is mostly daily income from petty trading has crumbled. Women and girls are locked away from people and resources that could have helped them and they have been locked in with their abusers with no way of escape.

Women and girls are at a heightened risk of domestic violence, rape, sexual abuse, Intimate partner violence, child abuse and other forms of gender-based violence.

In Nigeria, from a recent research carried out in 3 states, domestic violence has risen from 60 cases in March to 238 cases in April. The Minister for Women Affairs reported that Nigeria has recorded 3,600 rape cases during the lockdown.

Women Inspiration Development Center (WIDC) now records an average of 13 cases of domestic violence monthly compared to an average of 2 cases we normally had before the COVID 19 lockdown.

As a matter of urgency there is a need for temporary shelter for survivors. We have lost many women and girls as a result of their staying with the abusers because they don’t have anywhere to go

We need to intensify our advocacy on radio on the issue of Gender Based Violence

We want create support groups of survivors where women will be accessing holistic healing from what they have suffered and also economic empowerment to be able to continue to thrive on their own.