The Vision Centre for Communication and Development Advocacy says it is lending its voice and calls for decisive measures to be put in place to end violence against women.
VICCDA made this call as the world celebrates the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence, which started on November 25 and will end on December 10.
In a signed statement by its Acting Chairman, Otunba Gbenga Onayiga, the Centre called on Nigerians to join hands to stop gender-based violence.
Onayiga said the centre is calling on all stakeholders to to help bridge funding gaps and ensure essential services for survivors of violence.
He stated that the Centre wants to draw attention to the need for the prevention as well as collection of data that would improve life-saving services for women and girls.
He said: “As the world marks these 16 days under the global theme, ‘Orange the World: Fund, Respond, Prevent, Collect,’ VICCDA also identifies with the objectives of the UN and its agencies.
“We are calling on all stakeholders to to help bridge funding gaps and ensure essential services for survivors of violence during the COVID-19 crisis.
“We equally want to draw attention to the need for the prevention as well as collection of data that would improve life-saving services for women and girls.
“The centre pledges to be part of the campaign, which the UN Women said was part of efforts to launch new actions and commitments to end violence against women at the Generation Equality Forum in 2021.
“We at the Vision Centre pledge to join all other stakeholders to ensure we flatten the Curve of GBV.
“Even before COVID-19, violence against women and girls had reached a pandemic stage and with the global epidemic and the lockdown, it reached an unimaginable height.
“It is therefore our collective responsibility to ensure that everyone would join hands to put an end to this “Virus” which threatens to slow down global development.”
The Center is a non-governmental organisation working to promote good governance, improving journalists’ ethical conduct, capacity building towards entrepreneurship for self-reliance and catering for distressed journalists.