FG, EU strengthen tracking of violence against women

The European Union's initiative to combat violence against women in Nigeria is gaining momentum with the deployment of the country's first standardized justice-sector reporting platform. This move aims to bolster accountability, case tracking, and access to justice by addressing the fragmentation of data and poor case tracking that has plagued Nigeria's response to gender-based violence (GBV).

At a recent event in Abuja, Melissa Omene, a GBV policy and strategy development specialist from the International IDEA, highlighted that the platform's primary objective is to provide survivors with ongoing support after reporting incidents of violence. According to Omene, the new system evaluates various aspects of GBV cases, including data coordination, investigations, evidence management, and monitoring within the justice sector.

As of the first half of 2023, the National GBV Dashboard recorded 4,449 GBV cases, bringing the total to over 19,000 since the platform's launch in 2020. Head of the SGBV Unit at the Federal Ministry of Justice, Yewande Gbola-Awopetu, emphasized the critical role of accurate information in the success of the reporting system. She stressed that every field completed, case status updated, and follow-up logged contributes to the evidence base.

Gbola-Awopetu revealed that the National Human Rights Commission documented more than 33,000 SGBV cases between January and May, while the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) reported over 3,000 cases of violence against women in the FCT. These statistics underscore the urgent need for improved case documentation and tracking.

National Consultant for the VAW Reporting System at International IDEA, Agharinma Ehiedu, explained that the platform will consolidate state-level information into a single database, enabling justice institutions to access national data without contacting individual states. Additionally, the system allows members of the public to report violations, with cases automatically routed to the appropriate state desk officers. Ehiedu described the system as providing "full visibility" of GBV cases across Nigeria.