In its bid to stem the tide of prevalent sexual abuse in the society, Spring center in collaboration with Lasisi Agboola Iyiola foundation , LAIF ,on Saturday embarked on a sensitization walk/ door to door campaign within the Abeokuta Metropolis to reorient the populace on the societal menace .
In an interview with journalists, the executive director of the Spring Centre, Ogun state,Damola Lapite,stated that day was fixed for door to door campaign to create awareness on the havocs that sexual assault has been doing to children and girls especially in the society.
He noted that the need to prevent should be paramount than to cure.
" We decided to take the message to people adopting the door to door approach and speak to people in their homes.
" noting that we are gradually moving into the festive seasons, holidays seasons, we are telling parents on the need to care for the children, to watch where they go to and also to ensure safety of the children and for the adults also to generally care for themselves to prevent abuse sexually"
Dissecting the theme, " Safe Spaces , Strong voices"Lapite pinpointed creation of secured environment for the children by being watchful of what they are doing,.he enjoined parents to shun the attitude of allowing the children to care for themselves, adding that children need to be monitored so as to prevent being abused sexually.
"The adult as well need to create safe spaces for ourselves: Men and Women, to create safe spaces for each other and ensure that you are your brother's keeper".
He urged government to support, and intensify awareness on the menace.
' people who actually feel that they know, you only discovered that from interactions are actually stereotypes and myths. They do not know the facts and we want to take the fact to them in their homes"
He also harped on the need to create more ambassadors to speak on the menace.
"We have some ambassadors doing that and we want to create more ,when have more people, information will spread and the voice Will get stronger".
The Executive director who bemoaned the culture of silence on the part of survivors of the menace, added that applying the strong voice would break the silence.
In similar vein, the administrative officer,Seunfunmi Lapite, stated that the fourth edition theme is centred on the need to ensure that the communities, environments and society are safe, judging by the alarming rate of abuses in the society
"Places that are used to be safe are now longer safe anymore, churches, mosques, public places, where people keep their children when they go to work and come back to meet them safely but now we have abuse at these places called safe spaces. Now, the outreach is out to talk to people,to empower them with information that talks about prevention of sexual abuse, that talks about seeking consent before any sexual activities go on and talk about people lending their voices to the issue to ensure that stop is put to the menace in Nigeria"
She identified coming together of people as one of the keys to nip the issue in the bud as survivors would know that they are people who could speak for them in the community on any forms of sexual violence.
" A lone man voice cannot go far,but when people come together to raise their voices, it becomes even more than an echo and people will know that you have one or two people in the community watching you, to let people know that they are not alone and they have people who are able to speak out for them, refer them for support services on things relating to sexual violence".
On issue of Gender based violence, she implored government to collaborate more and partner with bodies like NGOs,CDOs and organisations working on the issues.
" Apart from these, Govts should also increase the budgets of ministries that work in these space, for example, the Ministry of women affairs and social development, Health and Justice, because when it comes to sexual abuse,all these ministries collaborate to get the kind of result we are looking for" she concluded.
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