Coalition urges Gombe Assembly on passage of VAPP
A Coalition promoting the passage of Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAPP), bill has urged the Gombe State House of Assembly to expedite action towards it passage.
The coalition made up of over 15 organisations working in the state, disclosed that despite the increasing level of Gender-based Violence in Gombe, the State is the only one in North-East yet to domesticate the law.
Our Correspondent reports that the bill would eliminate violence in private and public life, prohibit all forms of violence including; physical, sexual, psychological, domestic, harmful traditional practices. As well as fight, discrimination against persons and to provide maximum protection and effective remedies for victims and punishment of offenders.
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Speaking on Thursday during an interview with our correspondent shortly after a two-day legislative advocacy training for Civil Society Organisations, organised by Ipas Nigeria, the Chairman Alhassan Yahya Abdullahi, said the bill when passed would protect people across all strata.
“In reality, in the entire North-East, is only Gombe that so far has not passed the VAPP law we don’t want to be left behind because we know we are are a progressive state, developing state and we will not be left behind. So, i hope and pray at the end of the day, members of the House of Assembly will pass this bill to law and our children will be protected,” Abdullahi said.
While lauding the commitment of the Coalition towards ensuring the protection of lives, the Chairman stressed that there has been a spike around Gender-based Violence with many perpetrators getting off the hook easily without punitive measures.
He said, “I will begin by thanking each and everyone for participating in this meeting and if you look at it at the end of the day we were able to agree that issues around Gender-based Violence are alarming in Gombe State.
“The only away we can protect our children from such issues is for us to have what we call a law that is going to go a long way in protecting our children that is VAPP law and at the end of the day we are able to agree that as a Coalition of civil society working to see the passage of VAPP law and we are hoping that at the end of the day all the stakeholders, all the state house of assembly as well as the religious leaders will give us the maximum support for us to achieve it.”
Commenting further on the challenges inhibiting the smooth sail of the bill, Abdullahi, noted that the Coalition has embarked on sensitisation with traditional and religious leaders towards explaining the importance of domesticating VAPP in the state.
Abdullahi added, “Of course we are able to sensitise and reorient religious leaders so that they should know about the content of the VAPP bill and i want to tell you that the result we are getting from that is quite encouraging and it is our hope and prayer that at the end of the day we’ll work as a team towards making sure that we set a gender for the State House of Assembly to quickly call for the public hearing and we are hoping that after such public hearing that law should become along in gombe state.
“VAPP is something that will go a long way in making sure that perpetrators are held responsible because if you look at the penal code and other laws they did not clearly state the punishment of perpetrators in some particular cases but we felt VAPP was able to capture exactly what perpetrators should face at the end of every judgement.”
