AfA Holds One-day Strategic meeting on the popularization of the Kpoturum web application amongst CSOs and State Actors in Ebonyi and Enugu state

As a roll-up of the AWDF project on addressing systemic inequality in the South East, AfA held a one-day strategic meeting with CSOs in Nigeria.

The project aims to strengthen efforts toward ending sexual and gender-based violence and will be implemented in Ebonyi and Enugu states.

The two-year project on addressing systemic equalities through increasing women’s voices and activism in South East, Nigeria. The meeting was held in Ebonyi on the 16^th -18^th, February, 2022. The meeting targeted popularising the ‘Kpoturum’ web application, a technology tool developed by AfA with support from AWDF to improve reporting, case management and documentation of VAWG cases.

The strategic meeting exposed participants’ understanding of the importance of documentation in addressing VAWG, the role of CSOs, state actors and citizens in addressing VAWG, the importance of using technology to improve case management leveraging on the kpoturum web app.

During the interactive meeting facilitated by the project officer, Faith Kalagbor gaps and challenges identified by the CSO’s in the discharge of their duties were:

• Lack of clarity of purpose for CSO’s and the need for them to streamline their interventions according to their thematic area.
• Overlapping of roles in handling VAWG and GBV cases by state actors
• Police over abusing their roles
• Perpetrators using their highly connected networks to avert justice
• Disconnect between CSOs and state actors 
• Both states complained about the challenge of the implementation of the Violence Against Persons Act in their respective states.

 As part of recommendations made were for state actors to scrutinise properly those who parade themselves as GBV service providers while periodic trainings recommended for officers handling GBV cases, strong synergies were also advised among stakeholders including traditional rulers, state actors, security agencies and even the youths to ensure everyone is carried along.

AfA continues to live up her mandate to promote and protect human rights, peace, and sustainable development initiatives.