by Loveth Agbo Obiora,
Disability Rights Advocacy Center (DRAC) on Tuesday 15th and Wednesday 16th June 2021 in Abuja organized a 2-day training of Service Providers on disability service delivery in Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) services under the Policy to Practice Project supported by the Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption Program (ROLAC) implemented by the British Council and funded by the European Union.
The Executive Director, DRAC, Dr. Irene Ojiugo Patrick- Ogbogu speaking to The Qualitative Magazine (TQM) said that the training is for service providers to be able to understand disability issues and be able to tailor their services to persons with disabilities especially women and girls. There is assumption that women and girls do not suffer violence because they do not speak up and the reason why they do not speak up is because the services are not accessible to them for instance no sign language interpreters. Therefore, how can a deaf woman get justice when she is violated. It happens that some institutions instead of helping them to get justice, they are stigmatizing then when they are trying to access these services that can be of help to them. So, the training is for inclusive service delivery for persons with disabilities especially women and girls with disabilities.
Further speaking, Dr. Irene said that the training is also develop a toolkit that these institutions can make reference to, when delivering inclusive service in their various sectors.
“The objectives of the training were to introduce key concepts and approaches in disability inclusion to Sexual and gender-based violence service providers, improve the knowledge of participants on diversity and petulancies that exist within the disability spectrum, identify solutions to challenges faced by women and girls with disability in accessing justice in Nigeria and finally to guide service providers on the best practices in disability-inclusive service services” she added.
DRAC program officer, Idris Agboluaje gave an overview of Disability, Sexual and Gender- Based Violence (SGBV), and Disability Based Violence.
The consultant gave an overview of legal framework for addressing sexual and gender-based violence both international which Nigeria is a signatory to it and national, like the UNCRPD, VAPP Act, Childs Right Act, Prohibition Against Persons with Disability Act etc. She also engaged participants on multi-sectoral response to SGBV for persons with disabilities: which she talked about the critical services for all survivors of GBV with disabilities which includes share roles and responsibilities of service providers, law enforcement agencies and court, roles of health care providers, roles of civil society organization (CSOs) and organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs).
There was experience sharing by service providers on SGBV practices and challenges.
She further gave an overview of sexual and gender-based violence response protocol for women and girls with disabilities, referral pathways to SGBV response protocol for women and girls with disabilities.
In supporting survivors of SGBV, participants were engaged in an exercise with the aims of reflecting the experiences of stigma experienced by women and girls with disabilities, Common features of stigmatization of women and girls, stigmatization of persons with disabilities and stigmatization of women and girls with disabilities, what principles do we want to encourage in staff, partners and the community, what kinds of principles are most important when working with women and girls with disabilities? how can we integrate these principles into our work?
At the end of the training, the participants which includes the Police, Ministry of Justice, NAPTIP, Ministry of Education, Schools of special education, other MDAs. OPDs and CSOs had to work out a way to engage each other in providing disability inclusive service delivery.
SOME PICTURES OF EVENT
