‘68% violence against women unreported in Kano’

Stakeholders have expressed concern over the statistics that 68 per cent of cases related to Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in Kano State remain unreported.

The lamentation came at a one-day symposium organised by the Mercy Corps’ Girls Improving Resilience Through Livelihoods and Health (GIRL-H) initiative in partnership with the Kano State Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development and the Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), Kano State chapter, titled: “Addressing Gender- Based Violence in Kano State: The Need for Multi-Stakeholder Approach”.

Professor Aishatu Abdu Ismail of the Political Science Department of the Bayero University Kano (BUK), while sharing statistics, said, “One of three women worldwide were said to have experienced physical and sexual violence in their lifetime, and eight out of 10 of the perpetrators were men, 88 per cent of victims were children and youths. 87 per cent are abused by their husbands; 40 per cent of the perpetrators are local influentials, while 68 per cent of violence against women remain unreported.”

The Programme Manager of Girl-H, Jennifer Madueke, highlighted that over 10,000 adolescent youths had so far been reached with life skills and health information through their Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) programme in Kano.

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City & Crime reports that Girl-H is Mercy Corps’ Multi-Country Programme in Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda aimed to improve adolescent girls, boys and young people’s well-being by increasing their access to uptake of life skills, health information, basic numeracy and literacy, financial literacy, as well as foster pathways to formal education, economic opportunities and civic engagements contributing to individual and household resilience.