By Muhammad Sabiu – Kaduna
To mark the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, the wife of the Governor of Kaduna State, Aisha-Ummi Garba El-Rufai set up a campaign to protect vulnerable persons against sexual abuses and other forms of violence in the state.
To this end, she established the #ummielrufaisgbvchallenge! in order to facilitate and sustain the activities of the campaign.
Speaking during the campaign, the wife of the governor said she found it necessary to encourage CSOs, cluster of volunteers, individuals and the entire members of communities to share the responsibility of ensuring that our vulnerable people are protected against Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV).
“We all need to be advocates and actors in the fight against SGBV because our girls, boys, women and persons with special needs all need to be protected,” she declared.
She noted that the challenge which assembled a lot of attention on social media required people to spread into local communities, sensitize people massively on what to do when rape incident occurs, explain the causes and prevention of SGBV, support a survivor, report a case, assist survivors with access to SARCS, etc.
Highlights of the 16 days campaign which started on the 25th November and ended on 10th December, 2020 saw the awards of cash prizes to deserving persons who excel during the #ummielrufaisgbvchallenge.
For instance, the team of Instagram, musab_jibril, and others won the sum of five hundred and fifty thousand naira (N550,000), star price.
While the second position, Amina Zakari and the other teams carted away three hundred and fifty thousand Naira (N350,000).
The third position came in as a tie with two winners, Marie White and Reuben Victoria, both winning Two Hundred and Fifty thousand Naira (N250,000) each.
Members from the Civil Society, academia and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) served as umpire.