Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence
Response
Team (DSVRT) has concluded a two-day
workshop to
strengthen capacity of religious institutions in
responding to domestic violence.
The event held at Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja on
Wednesday
was organised in partnership with the
European Union
(EU)-funded Rule of Law and Anti
Collaboration
Programme and Nigeria Policing Programme,
was aimed
at sensitising religious organisations and
ensuring
adequate response to complaints of sexual and
gender-
based violence in the State.
According to the DSVRT coordinator, Mrs.
Titilola
Vivour-Adeniyi, the seminar was put together
against
the backdrop of recent statistics, which
revealed that
70 per cent of reported incidents of
matrimonial
abuses at DSVRT had already been reported
at victims’
religious organisations.
She said religious institutions were
strategically
positioned to prevent and properly respond to
domestic
violence, given that their teachings convey
values and
tolerant belief systems to their members.
She said: “Members of religious institutions
often have
direct support or counselling relationships with
their
religious leaders. Religious leaders, therefore,
are at a
vantage position in serving as first responders
to
incidents of domestic violence in their
respective places
of worship.”

Over 100 heads of Counselling Department
personnel
drawn from both Christian and Islamic faiths
were
selected for the workshop, where facilitators
engaged
them in various topical issues and lecture.
Some of the sub-topics were titled: An
Overview of
Gender Based Violence: Need for Professional
Pastoral
Counselling Skills; Christian and Islamic
Perspective on
Gender Violence; as well as A Critical
Consideration of
the Protection Against Domestic Violence Law
2015 and
Their Role in Properly Responding to Domestic
Violence.

Participants were encouraged to promote
teachings
that would provide helpful resources on
domestic abuse
through regular sermons, prayers, education
and
clerical care. The organisers urged that
messages from
religious institutions to their followers should
include
injunctions that indicate God’s love for all
humans and
the importance of mutual respect and
submission
between couples.

The need for a proper referral pathway
between
religious institutions and the government was
also
constantly emphasised at the workshop, given
that
domestic violence remains a punishable crime
in Lagos.

Head of Counselling Unit, Believers Faith
Incorporated,
Rev. Fredrick Makonjuola, who participated in
the
workshop, praised Lagos government for the
initiative,
urging the State to sustain the programme
for
continuous and inclusive engagement of all
religious
institutions in the campaign to end domestic
violence.

Source;
https://www.olofofotv.com/2019/08/lagos-state-partners-religious.html?m=1

Noted