Cross River inaugurates gender-based prevention and response centre

Cross River State government, in collaboration with some non-governmental organisations (NGOs), has inaugurated a gender-based prevention and response centre.

Speaking at the inauguration on Monday in Calabar, the state capital, wife of the governor, Dr Linda Ayade, said the establishment of the centre was motivated by the need to checkmate gender-based violence.

She said she was worried over the prevalence of gender-based challenge in the state.

Dr. Ayade noted, however, that notwithstanding the prevalence of the problem, the state was one step ahead of the problem.

”You see how sensitive this government is, when we have a problem, we try to nip it in the bud and that is what is happening today,” she said.

She aligned with country representative of the United Nations Fund For Population Activities (UNFPA), noting that the prevalence level of violence against women had been on the rise in the state.

“We can proudly say that we have a solution to this probleM in Calabar. I urge the women of Cross River to utilise the services of the centre as one in every three women in the state suffers one form of violence or the other daily,” she said.

She thanked the UNFPA for its continuous support and urged the state government to replicate the centre in its 18 local government areas.

Similarly, the Commissioner of Women Affairs, Mrs Stella Odey, decried the rate of violence against women in the state.

She described the development unbearable, saying that this was the reason women had come out enmasse to find solution the problem.

”The statistics are overwhelming and intolerable, so I call on everyone, including the press, to collaborate in stamping out violence against women in the state,” she said.

Odey said her ministry was quite supportive of victims of violence by collaborating with the judiciary and referring the cases to court.

She said she was not unaware that there were a lot of procedures in the court .

The Head of Office UNFPA in Cross River State, Kenneth Ehouzou, said the campaign about the problem was about creating awareness of the negative impact of violence and abuse on women and children.

Ehouzou said UNFPA had established a gender-based violence response centre and an information Management System (IMS) in the centre.