WACOL Trains Abia Magistrates, Customary Court Judges On Protection Of GBV Survivors

The Women’s Aid Collective, WACOL, has commenced a two-day training for Magistrates and Judges of Customary Courts in Abia State on effective implementation of laws and policies protecting the rights of Gender-Based Violence, GBV, survivors.

The training, supported by the Rule of Law and Anti-Corruption Programme, RoLAC, and funded by the European Union, EU, is holding at Harriet Hotel & Suites, Umuahia. It started Thursday, October 29 and will end Friday, October 30, 2026.

Presentations on the first day included Analysis of Violence Against Women and Girls: Understanding Roots, Forms and Impact, and Access To Justice For Women/Girls, Victims, Survivors of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence, both delivered by Dr. Chigozirim Ojiaka, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Imo State University.

Dr. Uju Peace Okeke, Law Lecturer, University of Nigeria Enugu Campus, presented on Existing Laws and Policies, Women’s Rights, State Laws Dealing With Sexual and Gender-Based Violence.

Dr. Okeke examined the African Charter domesticated in Nigeria and the Maputo Protocol, which protects women’s rights. She lamented that many women still die in pregnancy due to societal beliefs and practices, warning that failure to punish offenders breeds impunity.

She urged Magistrates and Customary Court Judges to ensure survivors of physical and sexual violence get attention and justice in their courts.

Dr. Ojiaka said Magistrates and Judges have an obligation to speed up cases and avoid delays, advocating electronic filing systems for speedy justice delivery. She noted that many women have suffered permanent injuries, forced into prostitution and denied inheritance in both their father’s and husband’s homes.

She dismissed the myth that indecent dressing causes rape, stressing that violence against women is not restricted to poor homes, as women from wealthy homes also suffer sexual violence but often do not speak out.

She listed challenges women face to include physical, sexual and emotional/psychological violence.

Dr. Ojiaka also dismissed stereotypes such as that wives cannot be raped by their husbands, married women should not work, women should not inherit property, and that female circumcision prevents promiscuity, describing them as untrue and injurious.

The training condemned traditional practices where widows are forced to shave their hair, drink water used in bathing their late husband’s corpse to prove innocence, sit on bare floors, sleep in the same room with the corpse, kept in solitary confinement, or forcibly married to in-laws.

It also condemned sharing of nude pictures of women and cases where women and girls are raped or defiled for money rituals or on the belief it cures diseases.

WACOL urged participants to use knowledge gained to protect women and girls in their courts to enhance a peaceful and safe society.

Some Magistrates and Judges thanked WACOL for the training, saying it increased their knowledge and opened ideas on justice delivery, while calling for improved investigation by Police and other law enforcement agencies.