A mental health expert, Dr. Maji Peterx, has identified communication, instilling self-esteem and survival skills in children to prevent any form of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence.
The Country Director, Equal Access International, made this known in an interview during a three-day training under Palladium’s Strengthening Civic Advocacy and Local Engagement project, sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development, in Abuja.
According to him, SGBV and Child Early Forced Marriage are pandemics ravaging the nation, hence the need to sensitise the public on their negative impacts on the psyche and societal structure.
Dr. Peterx, advised parents, guardians and other stakeholders to create a platform for fruitful conversation, watch out for any traces of abuse and instil street survival skills in children to prevent them from falling victims.
He said, “We should build our children’s self-esteem. We should win the confidence of our children and create a platform for sincere communication with them so they can tell us their problems.
“We should stop judging them and try not to create our own standards for our children to live up to because we live in different worlds.
“And most importantly, we should be able to teach our children street sense life and survival skills.”
According to him, children or other survivors of SGBV find it difficult to confide in other persons due to fear of stigmatisation, blame attitude and shutting them down, when they try to communicate about their plights.
“Like when a child refuses to go to school or there’s a drop in academic performance, or preference for isolation, parents should try to find out reasons why and not term that child to be lazy or unserious.
“When we do that, we are exposing the child, especially when he realises that he can’t speak out about his personal issues.
“When a child is being victimized, raped, abused or molested, the questions we ask will show if we are trying to blame them for causing it.
“This tends to shut down the victims, and shutting them off from talking about what is affecting them, thereby, making them more vulnerable to such abuses,’’ he said.
On reducing rape and other SGBV, Dr, Peterx, said shaming perpetrators by making them walk around their communities, where people identify and fingers are pointed at them, as well as including them in the Sexual Offenders Register, would curb the trend.
The Mental health expert also called on the government and critical stakeholders to implement policies and programmes that would protect the rights of children, women and People with Disabilities.
He said that policies like the Child Rights Act, Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act, and Disability law, among others, if fully implemented, would reduce all forms of violence against vulnerable persons. (NAN)
