The National Orientation Agency (NOA) and European Union-United Nations (EU-UN) Spotlight Initiative have said that they have discovered that Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) is very rampant in seven out of 13 Local Government Areas in Ebonyi State.

The Organizations stated this in Onueke, Ezza South Local Government Area of the state during a community-based road show/rally to raise awareness on the need to speak up about violence against children, violence against women and girls and gender-based in their various groups in seven selected local governments in the state.

The programme was organized by the National Orientation Agency in the state with support from the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative.

Unah Uchenna, the Programme Officer, National Orientation Agency, Ebonyi State and UNICEF Desk Officer in the agency revealed that violence against children, women and girls was still rampant in the seven local governments despite the campaign against the menace.

“On Tuesday during our road show in one of the seven local governments, we saw many children on the street, hawking on school hours, that is, between 9 am and 11 am. So the problem is still with us and we are doing everything possible to ensure that these problems are eradicated in our society,” he stated.

He noted that NOA and EU-UN Spotlight Initiative have reached out to millions of people to encourage them on how to report violence against children women and girls in their communities; how to handle violence issues and how to proffer solutions to the problem and help the victim.

“We spoke to the people on how to report any form of violence against children, women and girls on real-time not waiting for some days, weeks, months before reporting it because this is one of the problems we have in the fight against this menace.

“We also talked to them on how to own up to the program because if a community take up a program like Violence Against Children, women and girls before reaching out to partners like the Ministry of Women Affairs, National Orientation Agency, Ministry of Justice and others that are working in that field,” he said.

One of the women in the local government, Mrs Ujebe Eveyln Nneka, from the Ezzama community who is one of the surveillance team of NOA and EU-UN in the fight against GBV, urged the people of the local government to report any form of violence against women, children and girls to the appropriate quarters.

“We have come to advocate to the people to report any form of violence against women and girls in the community. There is a need to report any form of GBV in our area. The community members should stop child labour, child hawking, stop child marriage because they are minors they don’t know what they are doing, stop wife battering, rape is not allowed, allow widows to inherit their husband’s properties, give them land to farm,” Ujebe said. (New Telegraph)