By, Abdullahi Alhassan,
The revival of community led Peace Committee (also known Zauren Sulhu)has been identified as one of the surest ways of tackling the menace of gender based violence in Kano State .
A non Governmental organisation (NGO) Equal Access international (EAI) advocated this during a conversation to mark end of the 16 days of Activism by the United Nations in Kano .
Other measures highlighted at the interaction were ; adequate sensitization to dispel some cultural beliefs, the need for capacity building for both religious, traditional leaders and influencers.
Also recommended was advocacy visits, right orientation for both the boy and girl child from early childhood as well as premarital counseling for couples.
The EAI State Program Manager, Maryam Mohammed,in her remarks argued the return of Community Peace Committee would make people to have a rethink of any negative intention especially when he/she knows he will be ridicule.
She explained that “this is a group of people set up to look into issues that happened in the community to resolve them without necessarily going to the Police. At community level, they can look into issues, intervene or resolves them.
“Having such committee would help because when a person with bad intention look at it and see that if he does that thing and taken to that committee, he will be redicule, maybe he will have a rethink.”
The program officer further noted that, there are so many issues such as rape, domestic violence, economic deprivation to the women and incessant divorce which makeup violence against women, hence the need for public sensitization to reduce it to the barest minimum.
“Sometimes parents push their young daughters to marriage that ends up becoming a horror to her and at the end of the day, what she is experiencing, ordinarily somebody would not like to experience.
“Also if we can have policies and laws that frowns at this kind of violence, it will checkmate this kind of dealings, because one tend to think twice before commiting any atrocity such as rape.
“On reorientation we need to have a change of mindset on the way we bring up our children. Sometimes the girls are brought up to be better persons than the boys. we should also have a way of training our boys to grow up and be responsible. From the start, tell them what and what to be doing or behave.
“By and large, it is a collective responsibility for all because violence doesn’t pay; it is a violation of someone’s right wether to the woman, girl child or boys or whoever. We shouldn’t be violent to anyone,” she said.