The Cross River State Ministry of Justice, in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), has held an interactive engagement with stakeholders to improve response service delivery on violence against children, women and girls.
The 2-day event which came under the auspices of the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative, took place between 25th and 26th September, 2023, at Marian Hotel, Calabar, and had participants drawn from sectors such as justice, health, law enforcement and welfare service.
Speaking at the conclusion of the 2 days engagement, Mrs Florence Agbiji, Director General, Center for Citizens Right and Office of the Public Defender in the Ministry of Justice, said the forum provided stakeholders the opportunity to look at the performances of various sectors in ending violence against children, women and girls and as well as gender based violence.
According to her, “all the stakeholders have been open to share their challenges, good practices and make commitment to do better. We have also gotten to a point where we will do advocacy visit to top officers of these agencies like the Nigeria Police, the Chief Judge and others, just to be able to get a commitment for us to function as a justice delivery response sector.”
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Also speaking, Mr Victor Atuchukwu, a Child Protection Specialist at UNICEF Field Office, Enugu, said the event was aimed at improving service delivery for survivors of violence, multi-sectoral response and also to identify gaps in care and response protocol.
Atuchukwu added that the engagement was equally to improve on inter agency collaboration, stating that “it is a good thing to have all these different bodies come together just for one goal – to see that no child, no girl, no woman is left behind in all the services they desire, especially justice.”
On his part, Mr Kebe Ikpi, Cross River State Coordinator of the Child Protection Network (CPN) and facilitator at the event, thanked the Ministry of Justice and UNICEF for creating the opportunity for judges, magistrates, social workers and civil society organizations in the child protection space to have their memory refreshed on issues around child protection, basic principles of child protection, case management and the position of the law on it.
Ikpi, however, frowned at the way and manner in which the Nigeria Police handle child protection cases, lamenting that “they demand for money before they file cases in court, making it look like it is the court that is requesting for this payment. But we know it is not true. This meeting has opened our eyes. The magistrates and judges in whose courts they appear, made it very clear that there is no such demand or request on their side.”
“It means that these policemen are corruptly enriching themselves at the expense of people who already are suffering from a certain type of violence that we ought to protect. We cannot continue like this. Something has to be done. I’m calling on the Commissioner of Police, the Inspector General of Police to do something about it to ensure that policemen do not give the Force a bad name, and the cases that come to the police are treated appropriately so that people are not discouraged from going to report cases,” he said.
The facilitator further charged police authorities to do away with any bottleneck that would impede the reporting of cases, stressing that one of the goals of the End Violence Campaign is to encourage people to report cases of violence against children, women and girls and gender based violence in all forms.
“Whatever that can be done to ensure that illegal collections on the side of the police, especially at the point where matters are being filed in court, is stopped. It will be highly appreciated and will be seen as a contribution to the End Violence Campaign,” Ikpi appealed.