UNICEF, JASPI Foundation Collaborate to Strengthen Child Protection in Benue

George Okoh in Makurdi

United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has promised to support any initiative that seeks to strengthen the government’s policy on child protection and abuse such as Gender Based Violence, GBV and sexual exploitation, particularly in Internally Displaced Persons, IDP camp, in Benue State.

It made the commitment yesterday in Makurdi, during a stakeholders meeting organized by UNICEF in collaboration with JASPI Health and Gender Development Initiative on how to Plan and Agree on Sexual and Gender Based Violence, SGBV and Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, PSRA, Implementation Priorities in Benue state, which brought together stakeholders from Ministries, Departments, Agencies and MDAs.

Child Protection Specialist, UNICEF Enugu field office, Victor Atuchukwu, lamented that such cases are most rampant in the Internally Displaced Persons camp.

He described the topic as apt, affirming that cases of sexual exploitation and abuse are more topical in the IDPs camp.

The UNICEF Child Protection Specialist Enugu Office, further explained that focusing on IDP camps is because of the vulnerability of inmates, stressing that gender-based violence and sexual exploitation are equally found in offices, between persons with influential powers trying to get undue advantage over the other.

He added that UNICEF with one of the strongest sexual and exploitation prevention policies, decided to partner the Benue State Government to see how it could adopt its policy and even improve on it.

Atuchukwu said UNICEF’s interventions are mostly on child protection, health and education of the child but it beamed its searchlight on children in the IDP camps and their host communities, stating that in collaboration with the state government, the organization intends to develop a document in such a way that will ensure total eradication of SGBV and sexual exploitation as well as abuses both in IDP camps and the entire state.

In an opening remark, Commissioner, Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Welfare in Benue State, Mrs. Theresa Ikwue, represented by Mrs. Magdalene Andoor, the Director, Women Affairs, expressed appreciation to the organizers for putting together the stakeholders meeting, describing the initiative as timely, especially that the capacity building was coming at a time cases of gender-based violence are rampant in the state.

The commissioner stated the collaboration will go a long way to assist the ministry deliver on its mandate which is taking good care of women and children.

She equally expressed optimism that participants who are drawn from different organisations will go back to step down what they have learnt to change the present narrative while the ministry will implement what have been learnt at the meeting to the later.

Mrs. Patricia Suswam, the Executive Director of JAPSI Foundation said the partnership with UNICEF is to make sure that cases of SGBV and exploitation especially in IDP camps are prevented.

She said to ensure that such cases are not just brought to a halt but perpetrators also punished, JASPI in collaboration with UNICEF brought together stakeholders to see how resolutions at the meeting would be implemented, expressing excitement with the turnout which she described as impressive.

The Executive Director, JAPSI explaining why the focus is on IDP camps said in the camp, inmates sometimes behave as if they are animals, citing cases where two- year-old child was reportedly raped, stating such reasons for prompting the meeting.