To commemorate the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the Rivers State Ministry of Women Affairs has ensured that its advocacy and sanitization campaigns are taken to the grassroots.
The Permanent Secretary, Mrs. Ngozi Ogali Benibor, disclosed this during a media chat after a meeting with collaborating partners in her office.
Mrs. Benibor said the programme will commence on Tuesday November 25, 2014 with a street march to create awareness on the violence against women and the need to put an end to it.
She said the Ministry will be collaborating with Gender and Development Advocacy National stability and Rehabilitation Programme, Non-Governmental Organizations, Civil Rights Societies, Civic Based organizations, security agencies and the media.
The Permanent Secretary who said the Ministry is committed to ensuring that the society puts a stop to the mindsets and customs that encourage, ignore or tolerate violence against women and girls said the theme for this year is “from Peace in the Home to Peace in the World: Let’s Challenge Militarism and End Gender-Based Violence”.
In a related development the United National secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon in his message to commemorate the day has said “sexual and gender-based violence is the most extreme form of the global and systemic inequality experienced by women and girls. It knows no geographic, socio-economic or cultural boundaries,” adding that worldwide, one in three women will suffer physical or sexual violence at some point in ones life time ranging from rape and domestic violence to harassment at work and bullying on the internet.
Ban Ki-Moon stressed that everyone has a responsibility to prevent and end violence against women and girls, by challenging the culture of discrimination, negative gender stereotypes and attitudes, introduce and implement laws to prevent and end exploitation and abusive behavior whenever we see it.
It will be recall that women activists have set aside November 25 annually as a day to mark violence against women since 1981. This date came from the brutal assassinations in 1960, of the three Mirabal sisters who were political activists in the Dominican Republic, on the orders of the then Dominican ruler Rafael Trujillo.
River State Government Press Release
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