A’Ibom Adjudged Model State In Fight Against GBV

Akwa Ibom State has emerged as one of the model States in the campaign against Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in Nigeria.

This was contained in the Womanity Index Report launched on Wednesday in Abuja, Nigeria by Invictus Africa and BudgIT Foundation.

The Womanity Index Report utilized quantitative and qualitative data collection and research approaches and assessed the subnational government’s commitments to GBV prevention and response using indicators across five indexes, Laws and Policies, Access to Legal Justice, Support Services, Information and Awareness, and Budget and Spending.

States are ranked using colour codes, both overall and individual indexes.

Akwa Ibom State was ranked across the five indexes as follows, Laws and Policy -Blue (Excellent), Access to Legal Justice – Yellow (Fair), Support Services – Yellow (Fair), Information and Awareness – Green (Very Good), Budget and Spending -Green (Very Good), and its Overall Ranking was Green (Very Good)

It was ranked GREEN along with Bauchi, Bayelsa, Delta Edo, Ekiti, FCT, Kaduna, and Ogun States.

Only Lagos State was ranked BLUE. It was the shining example for other States of the Federation to follow as far as SGBV Prevention and Response is concerned.

The Womanity Index shows gaps in the implementation of SGBV Prevention and Response even among the Blue, Green, Yellow and Red States.

This implies that Akwa Ibom State still has lots of room for improvement despite the great progress recorded since COVID-19 on SGBV Prevention and Response in the State.

Akwa Ibom State Government became interested in GBV response and prevention in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic through the effort and political will of the immediate past First Lady of Akwa Ibom State, Dr. Mrs Martha Udom Emmanuel and the Akwa Ibom State GBV Management Committee.

The gaps revealed in this report however calls for more action to improve on those indexes, Akwa Ibom State has not done excellently well.