Islamic scholars from northern Nigeria have called for interventions and preventive measures to address the increasing cases of Gender-Based Violence in the region.
They made the call on Saturday in Abuja at a one-day workshop for Muslim leaders in preventing GBV organised by the Development Research and Projects Centre in collaboration with the Centre for Islamic Civilisation and Interfaith, Bayero University Kano, and supported by the Ford Foundation.
The workshop was designed to mobilise Islamic scholars in northern Nigeria to lend their voices and use their pulpits to promote the prevention of GBV in northern Nigeria, particularly in Kaduna, Kano, Jigawa and Zamfara states.
According to the United Nations, GBV is violence committed against a person because of his or her sex or gender. It is forcing another person to do something against his or her will through violence, coercion, threats, deception, cultural expectations, or economic means.
According to Dataphyte, in the northern part of Nigeria, the Salama Sexual Assault Referral Centre in Kafanchan, Kaduna State, recorded 3,977 cases of sexual and gender-based violence since its inception in 2019.
Speaking at the workshop, the Executive Director of the dRPC, Dr Judith-Ann Walker, represented by the Project Director, Dr Stanley Ukpai, said the growing cases of gender-based violence in the region are increasingly becoming an issue of concern, making it imperative for the intervention.
“The project aims to prevent rather than mitigate the impact of GBV. The workshop will devise strategies that employ scholars’ pulpits, traditional and government officials’ voices to mobilise citizens through the lens of the Islamic perspective to prevent GBV in northern states.
“It is worrying that cases of GBV are increasing despite efforts by governments, civil society organisations and development partners in the region,” she stated.
This, she added, led to the determination to explore the voices of Islamic scholars to provide solutions through an Islamic perspective in dealing with the situation.
“Data collated from the Kano state referral centre, for example, indicate that in five years, over 1,334 cases of GBV were recorded while 671 cases were within July as recorded by the Hisbah board,” she added.
The Coordinator of the Muslim Opinion Leaders Project, Ahmad Abdullahi Ahmad, said the project aims to strengthen the capacities of Islamic leaders to challenge and address the growing cases of GBV in the region.
He added that a peer-to-peer study in Egypt has exposed the scholars to sharing experiences with leading Islamic scholars in Egypt on how Islam is dealing with cases of GBV.
On his part, the Director of the Centre of Islamic Civilisation at the Bayero University, Kano, Dr Taufiq Abubakar, disclosed that the centre is collaborating on this menace after extensive research shows that GBV constitutes a significant challenge to preserving the rights of women in northern Nigeria.
He said that the university is determined to build the capacities of Islamic scholars in northern Nigeria to cultivate the provisions of the Qur’an and Hadeeth to fight GBV and prevent its occurrence.
He added that the intervention will include advocacy visits and research on how to prevent GBV through the prism of Islam.
He urged the Islamic scholars participating in the workshop to learn from the rich discussion and design interventions that would reduce the cases of GBV in the northern part of the country and Nigeria.
Earlier, the Sarki Yakin Gagi and the District Head of Gagi in Sokoto State, Alhaji Sani Jabi, described the intervention that looks at GBV from an Islamic perspective as the gap missing in previous interventions, revealing that it is necessary that efforts are congregated to support the move to prevent GBV in the region.
