As part of the activities marking this year’s ’16 Days of Activism against Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, SGBV, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Mr Abubakar Malami, SAN, has called for the training of investigators and prosecutors as specialists in the handling of SGBV cases in Nigeria.
Malami made this statement at the First Mock Court Trial organised by the EU-funded Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption, RoLAC, Programme of the British Council in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Justice and the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, NAPTIP.
According to the AGF, it is imperative to train these first responders in the access to justice spectrum on evidence collection and storage, intelligence gathering and reporting, evidence analysis and chain of custody preservation.
Represented by the Director in the Public Prosecution Department, Federal Ministry of Justice, Mr Abdulrahim Shuaibu, he stressed the need for the establishment of more Sexual Assault Referral Centres, SARC, in the country.
He said: “The absence of SARC is akin to retraining the survivors of SGBV, this is at the very core of my ministerial pursuit and I am seriously working on an Access to Justice based SARC which will evolve in due course,”
“This is a holistic vehicle that provides an all-inclusive integrated service amongst MDAs to the survivors of SGBV.”
It is, therefore, he noted, critical, fundamental and essential in-service delivery to Survivors,” he added.
According to the minister, access to justice based SARC will include improved health care services that would address the medical, physical, mental and psychosocial consequences of SGBV to Survivors.
While noting that, there is also a need to train our Judges on the handling of SGBV cases especially about victim and witness protection and the management of evidence gathered due to the sensitive nature of these cases.
In the same vein, Prof. Joy Ezeilo, Chairperson of SARCs, Prof. Joy Ezeilo, disclosed that since its establishment in 2013, SARC has continued to provide free immediate emergency medical treatment, counselling and follow up support to survivors of rape and sexual assault.
Ezeilo noted that in just eight years, the SARC Network has grown from a single SARC in Lagos to 32 SARCS across 19 states in Nigeria assisting over 22,000 survivors of sexual assault combined.
She stressed that there is a remarkable expansion spread of the SARC initiative in Nigeria and a stronger focus nationwide on comprehensive medical and counselling services for survivors.
Ezeilo stated that the RoLAC programme would like to support the call and effort to establish specialised courts for SGBV by holding these mock specialised SGBV courts.
According to her, this will model what survivor centred SGBV court processes and proceedings would look like in the context of Nigeria’s legislative social policy environment.
“It will provide the opportunity to model police investigation and prosecution scenarios that support or compromise justice for survivors,” she said.
She said that the lessons gathered from the mock trials will assist law enforcement, the judiciary and the criminal justice system to fast track the justice process on similar existing cases.
Ezeilo said it will also encourage justice service providers to employ the right attitudes and tools in their interactions with victims and perpetrators of SGBV. She also noted that they brought in innovations, which connotes gender offence is not just committed against a woman, with this you see the good, the bad and the ugly.
On his part, former Minister of Justice, Prince Adetokunbo Kayode SAN, reiterated that many people go through this violence today from an immediate environment who are very close.
Kayode was of the view that these persons are sometimes those persons who feel they are higher in status and the victim cannot do anything to them.
He said that “rape of a minor is a serious issue, the bottom line is that it should not even get there, the rules of engagement must change”.
