The Alliance for Africa (AFA) has organised a training session for women and girls to familiarise them with technology that can be used to track and prevent violence against women and girls. The technology will include the use of an app that allows people to report gender-based violence (GBV) and receive immediate referrals from GBV response services.
Faith Kalagbor, an AFA programme officer, revealed this during a one-day workshop in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, with funding from the African Women Development Fund (AWDF), for women and girls to improve their understanding on technology concerns in order to combat GBV.
If put into practice, the training, according to Kalagbor, will help to strengthen effective communication channels and bridge the gap between the survivor and provider, as it will go a long way toward achieving the training’s objectives of “Addressing Systemic Inequalities through Increasing Women’s Voices and Activism in South East, Nigeria.”
“This training is a capacity building on technology and leadership for women and girls in Enugu and Ebonyi State,” she explained. The goal is to bring women up to speed with technical advancements in terms of women’s rights.
“Today’s meeting has the potential to bring women up to speed on technology and other strategies to combat GBV.
“This conference isn’t simply to teach you about technology; it’s also to get you thinking about how you might use technology to automate reporting situations, because putting this data on a digital platform will help to bridge the gap between survivor and provider.”
“This training will also ensure that there is record and evidence that these things are occurring, because we’ve found that government institutions frequently deny that they are occurring or have escalated.” But now we’ll get real-time data from both service providers and survivors, as well as third-party reporting that isn’t necessarily from service providers.
“It brings data to life and will be updated on a daily basis since individuals will be reporting all the time.” It will be available on the app, and AFA has created a tool to that helps people report and get instant referral service from GBV response services,” she stated
State program officer CIRDDOC Nig Mrs. Goodness Mgbaja praised AFA for the training, describing it as an eye-opener for women and girls to realize that with technology, GBV, and other issues impacting women and girls will be addressed more quickly in Ebonyi State.
She then urged all of the attendees to engage in advocacy in order to attract the government to establish a technical environment that empowers women and girls in the field of information and communication technologies.
“Women make up nearly half (47%) of the workforce in Ebonyi state, but they hold less than a third (28%) of the leadership roles in technology,” she mentioned. As women, we must advocate for the government to build a technical environment that empowers and encourages girls and young women to pursue employment in the field of information and communication technologies.
“A shadow pandemic of Gender-Based Violence has been triggered by COVID-19 and related containment measures” (GBV). Millions of girls and women’s safety and well-being have been jeopardized by this global evil. Domestic abuse reports have tripled in our communities, and because the majority of domestic violence remains unreported, the problem is likely to be far worse. This violence may be physical, sexual, verbal, psychological, or financial, and often occurs in households, where digital technology can provide significant benefits. “I’d like to express my gratitude to AFA for putting together such a program,” she remarked.
DSP Loveth Odah, the State Police Public Relations Officer, praised AFA for the training and urged women and girls to speak up without fear and always report to the police. Speaking up, she believes, will aid in lowering the rate of VAWG in society.
