The wife of Ekiti State Governor, Dr Mrs Yemi Oyebanji has encouraged all relevant sectors and agencies in Ekiti State to play active roles in checking the manace of Gender Based Violence, GBV.
she stated this in Ado-Ekiti during a workshop for Gender Based Violence Responders.
She noted that the roles of relevant agencies and sectors became imperative owing to the fact that the manace had remained a thing of concern in the world, considering its effect on peaceful coexistence of people.
She described Gender Based Violence as the most pervasive violation of human rights and one of the greatest threat to lasting peace and development.
” Violence against Women and children in particular has tremendous negative impact on communities and the nations at large, consequently, for an effective response to it, different sectors in the society must work in collaboration” Dr Oyebanji added.
The first Lady however, gave an assurance that there would be relentless effort at ensuring training and retraining of relevant GBV Responders across the state.
Dr Oyebanji therefore told the participants at the workshop who were mostly traditional rulers that their cooperation was significant as custodian of the people’s culture in the fight against the scourge of gender based Violence in the state.
In a contribution, the permanent Secretary, Ministry of Women Affairs and social Development, Mrs Sola Adeluyi, appealed to the royal fathers to ensure continuous Coordination of their communities to prevent and monitor existing laws on the ugly trend while copies of legal documents would be made available to bureau of chieftaincy Affairs.
She urged them to do away with social norms that are detrimental, harmful and inimical to the wellbeing of the society.
Earlier, the Chairman, Traditional Council of Obas in Ekiti State and Onisan of Isan Ekiti, Oba Gabriel Adejuwon, said Royal fathers would continue to advice government, synergize and work with council officials in ensuring that the needful is done in respect of GBV.
He added that traditional institution should be empowered by government to handle some of the GBV cases without necessarily heading to court for legal action.