The Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) has commenced a five-day training programme for school principals and male teachers on preventing and addressing gender-based violence (GBV) in schools.
The State Project Coordinator of Kogi AGILE, Alhaji Ahmed Tijani Oricha, said the training was aimed at equipping teachers with the knowledge and skills needed to mitigate gender-based violence in their schools.
Oricha stated this in a message delivered at the training programme for principals and male teachers from public and private secondary schools in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital.
Represented by the Gender-Based Violence Officer of Kogi AGILE, Mr James Sunday Moses, the coordinator said the training became necessary following reports of GBV in society, particularly within school environments.
“AGILE is focusing on the girl-child in public secondary schools. To mitigate the occurrence of GBV cases in schools, we need to train teachers who will cascade the training to their colleagues. This will help us reduce GBV in the school environment, especially now that this project is ongoing,” he said.
He explained that the construction of classrooms and toilet facilities had brought external workers into school environments, making it necessary for teachers to remain vigilant and protect schoolgirls from abuse and other forms of violation.
On accountability measures, Oricha said mechanisms had been put in place to ensure that schools remained safe environments for learning.
“We have grievance redress mechanism (GRM) boxes, complaint registers and hotlines that students can use to report anyone who attempts to harass or violate them. They can report through the appropriate channels.
“We also have referral protocols, GBV service providers, law enforcement agencies, lawyers, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the Ministry of Women Affairs, where we have a dashboard for reporting issues,” he said.
In her remarks, the Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) Officer for Kogi AGILE, Mrs Roseline Ozovehe, said monitoring and evaluation teams visited schools periodically to assess compliance with the project’s guidelines.
“In schools, we have GRM boxes and hotlines where complaints can be received in the event of any GBV occurrence. Once a report is received, it is escalated to ensure that it is addressed. If it is GBV-related, the GBV officer visits the site to obtain details and ensure that the matter is properly addressed,” she explained.
She noted that where grievances related to project rehabilitation, a School-Based Management Committee (SBMC) was established to address them. However, if the committee could not resolve the issues, the state office intervened.
Ozovehe said GBV cases were less frequent in Kogi State than in some other states, attributing this to the presence of NGOs and GBV focal teachers trained under the AGILE project.
Also speaking, the GBV specialist and facilitator, Joy Oluwaseun Akiola, said school-related gender-based violence took various forms, including bullying, physical abuse, sexual abuse and exploitation, often fuelled by power imbalances.
“There are prefects and non-prefects, as well as teachers and students. Students sometimes feel that their marks are in the hands of teachers and that their results could be affected if they refuse to comply with illicit demands.
“We are educating teachers that it is a crime to engage in any form of sexual and gender-based violence. They should be able to identify it early, and they themselves must not engage in it, as perpetrators will be dealt with according to the law,” she said.
Akiola added that GBV focal persons had been trained to handle and refer cases to the appropriate authorities. However, she stressed that the primary focus was on preventive measures to stop violence before it occurred.
In their separate remarks, the Principal of Local Government Secondary School, Kabawa, Dr Danjuma Audu, and the Principal of Army Day Secondary School, Mr Salami Moses, expressed satisfaction with the training.
They said that although schools had previously handled GBV cases internally, the training had improved their understanding of the need to protect the girl-child, handle cases confidentially and serve as role models.
They added that involving female teachers where necessary would help ensure that GBV cases were handled appropriately.
