An associate professor of the University of Leicester, Hajiya Zainab Ladan Mai-Bornu, has said that the best way to curb rampant cases of gender base violence (GBV), which is causing untold hardship, frustration, and untimely death in society, is for couples to respect each other and not to see themselves as punching bags at any eruption of a minor quarrel.
This was just as she stated that women and girls are major victims of violence and insecurity in the country.
Making this known during a workshop organised for civil society, traditional rulers in Kano, Hajiya Zainab, said there is a need to embrace a bottom-up approach to communication and do away with a top-down approach so that the grass-roots level would understand the effect of GBV.
While speaking on the theme titled “Theory of Change: Women’s Participation in the Peacebuilding Process” and Theory of Change on Addressing Violence Against Women,” Hajiya Zainab stressed the need for a positive understanding between husband and wife.
She then disclosed that this kind of programme was held in the Niger Delta area of the country, and the organisation felt that the GBV was also happening in the northern part of the country, hence the need to host the programme here in the north.
The organisation then resolved to organise this in the northern part of the country by gathering the CSO, traditional leaders, and elders to discuss ways to tackle the rampant cases of GBV.
According to her, “Anything that affects women and girls goes beyond religion and ethnicity. She added that the organisers are looking for ways to gather women from the Niger Delta and the northern part of the country together and rub their minds on how to address the GBV.
Also talk about the issue of giving women more opportunities as local leaders, by engaging them in peacebuilding and decision-making at the highest levels, a lot of remarkable improvement would be achieved.
She, however, disclosed that when we talk about GBV, it was not only women who were affected; men were also victims of GBV, hence the need to treat each other with dignity, an interim of humanity, and without being oppressed.
She called on husbands to be cautious of the way they treat their wives in front of their children, noting that the children see how their mothers were maltreated, saying this negative attitude does not augur well for the proper upbringing of these children.
Zainab hinted that it is normal that a husband who has tiger faces and fails to respect the dignity of his wife cannot expect the wife to be subservient or respect such a husband.
“Both husband, wife, and even children have to inculcate the habit of respecting each other’s, and these would ensure a better society,” she said.
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