by Chris Agbo,
Research has shown that women and girls with disabilities (WGWDs) are more vulnerable to Gender Based Violence (GBV) especially sexual violence which may result in trauma-related disorders and/or eventually lead to permanent behavioral or personality changes. Due to the multiple barriers they face in accessing healthcare services and the poor adherence to global standards and best practices by service providers to provide professional survivor centered, emotional and psycho-social support mechanisms, their experiences of violence remain hidden and unaddressed.
To address the above concerns, Disability Rights Advocacy Center (DRAC) with support from the Spotlight Initiative organized a 3-day training of service providers on psychosocial/trauma counseling to build the capacity of SGBV service providers in making high quality essential and disability inclusive counseling services available to survivors of gender-based violence. The training held on Wednesday 10th – Friday 12th March 2021 in Abuja.
The Executive Director, DRAC, Dr. Irene Ojiugo Patrick-Ogbogu in her opening remark said that the Greater Inclusion, Responses and Linkages in SRHR and SGBV Services for WGWDs in the FCT (GIRLS) Project which is supported by Spotlight Initiative is particularly important because it is geared towards eliminating all forms of violence against women and girls with disabilities in the FCT by capacitating SGBV service providers to be more responsive and proactive in the discharge of their duties. She urged the participants to take advantage of the training as it has been designed to be participatory and facilitated by one of the best experts in psychosocial counseling.
DRAC’s Child Protection and Safeguarding Officer, Noel Balogun Samuel, while presenting an overview of the GIRLS Project said that the essence of the training is to build the capacity of SGBV service providers to address the psychosocial needs of WGWDs who experience trauma, mental health related forms of distress and those who are survivors of gender-based violence. He added that collaboration with Government agencies in scaling counseling and mental health services and fostering reintegration of WGWDs who are victims/survivors of SGBV should be prioritized.
The representative of UN women, Tosin Akibu in her speech appreciated the participants for making out time to acquire the knowledge of counseling which is lacking in the response to gender-based violence (GBV). She opined that the multi-dimensional vulnerabilities that WGWDs face exposes them to multi-layers of trauma and unfortunately, most service providers are unable to provide beyond psychological first aid. She appreciated DRAC for taking up the initiative which she described as timely and urged the participants to use learnings from the training to redefine response to SGBV in the FCT.
The Consultant, Onyekwue Francis Nnadozie, National Coordinator, Trauma Awareness and Resilience (TAR) Initiative took the participants through definitions and types of stress, trauma, burnout, and their differences. He also covered topics around psychosocial support, psychosocial wellbeing and Skills needed in psychosocial support delivery and the benefits of counseling. The training was generally participatory as there were several group-works which helped to improve the participants’ understanding of the topics.
The highlight of the event was when some of the participants shared their traumatic experiences. It provided some moment of emotional healing and laying off traumatic experiences so that weights which could easily form an encumbrance to the discharge of their services are laid off. This was accompanied by a role play on what an ideal and appropriate counselling session should be.
The participants were presented with certificates of participation at the end of the training and were advised to acquire more training on counseling because it would be helpful to them as SGBV service providers.
Participants were drawn from the health sector, justice services, law enforcement agencies like the police, lawyers working with survivors of SGBV, Government MDAs in SGBV response like NAPTIP and National Human Rights Commission, authorities of special schools and organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs). Â
SOME PICTURES OF THE EVENT
