Counselling effective for reducing violence against women — Don

Violence

By Afusat Agunbiade-Oladipo

Ilorin, March 6, 2020(NAN) A don, Dr Samuel Ajiboye, says counselling is an effective means of stemming violence against women in the society.

Ajiboye said this in a lecture titled “Counselling and Counselling Process for the Victims and Survivors of Violence Against Women and Girls,” delivered at the Olive Community Development Initiative (OCDI) Ilorin on Friday.

The lecture was part of the two-day training organised for the 15-member Committee on Violence Against Women set up by OCDI and being sponsored by Global Affairs Canada in partnership with Action Aid Nigeria.

“Counselling is the most efficacious intervention for prevention of violence against women. It is very effective, very potent and particularly rehabilitating the survivors of Violence Against Women (VAW),” said Ajiboye of the Department of Guidance and Counselling, University of Ilorin.

Ajiboye described violence against women as very despicable, adding that infliction of injury on women, either physically or emotionally, was unacceptable, inexcusable and intolerable.

He stated that violence against women could come in various forms such as physical aggression, psycho-social aggression and emotional, saying that intervention of counselling process remains a potent tool for its prevention.

The university teacher identified masculine dominance, poverty, patriarchal values, as some of the factors fuelling violence against women and girls, in all-known human societies.

In her lecture at the training, Olaoye Jumoke, of the National Human Rights Commission in Kwara, described violence against women as a barbaric and retrogressive idea that needed to be addressed for harmonious life in the society.

Olaoye said laws were clear about violence against fellow human beings, adding that it was very appalling that women were usually victims of dehumanisation, intimidation and other related forms of abuse.

Also in his presentation, the Kwara Coordinator of Network Against Child Trafficking, Abuse and Labour (NACTAL), Mr Olufemi Oyedeji, called on committee members to be more proactive and diligence in their assignments to achieve the purpose for which the committee was set up.

Oyedeji said that all hands must be on deck to collectively prevent violence against women and girls in Kwara and Nigeria as a whole. (NAN)
AGF /FLP/WOJ

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Edited by Folorunso Poroye/Wale Ojetimi

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