734 traditional, religious leaders sign commitment against gender violence

No fewer than 734 selected traditional, religious and opinion leaders have signed commitments towards ending school-related gender violence in Kano.

The Director of Planning, Research and Statistics at the state’s Qur’anic and Islamiyya School Management Board (QISMB), Muhammad Ibn Alhassan revealed this while speaking at this year’s UNICEF end-of-the -year meeting.

He said 217 of the signatories are females who are key actors in the crusade.

Alhassan added that the initiative was to mitigate the risk of drop out or weak participation of girls in schools, noting that, “the initiative is yielding the desired result already”.

Earlier, Maulid Warfa of UNICEF’s Kano Field Office said despite the year 2020 being a challenging one due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some positive developments were recorded that includes reaching out to students through broadcast outlets and effective work towards addressing the pandemic with frontline workers.

Warfa said huge success was recorded on routine immunisation, noting that it was disturbing to note the state’s high indices on maternal mortality and out of school children.