A group, Gender Relevance Initiative Promotion (GRIP), has urged Nigerians to report any gender-based violence to the police and other relevant authorities, in spite of COVID-19-induced lockdown.
In an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday, April 8, 2020 in Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, founder of the group, Ms Rita Ilevbare, said that COVID-19 may have exposed people to multi-dimensional stress.
Ilevbare said the stress often include various human rights violations.
She explained that women, most especially, are likely to suffer more from these violations if there are no deliberate interventions to prevent them.
She pointed out that World Health Organisation (WHO) has raised the concern that a lot of women are facing domestic violence due to the lockdown, because women are forced to stay at home with their abusers.
“Nobody deserves to be violated; regardless of whatever circumstances.
“That is why at Gender Relevance Initiative Promotion (GRIP), we continue to make our services available to ensure women’s vulnerability to all forms of Gender Based Violence (GBV) are mitigated,” she said.
Ilevbare said anyone exposed to such violence or anyone that knows somebody who does, should seek help immediately, before the situation gets worse.
By Opeyemi Aremu-Gbemiro
