NGO harps on accelerating justice for SGBV victims

By Stanley Onyekwere

A Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), the Voice of the Girl Child and Vulnerable People’s Foundation (VGCVPF), has stressed the need to help generate and keep track of nefarious acts especially Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV), in order to ensure justice for the victims.
VGCVPF noted that security agencies need citizens to help them in tackling the menace and other security challenges.
The NGO explained that it conceived and developed Guardup’ mobile internet application, designed to avail information as evidence and engage with critical stakeholders such as Government agencies and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), security agencies amongst others.
Executive Director of the Foundation, Aisha Bello, said with the app, it is easy to monitor activities and prevent criminalities, so as to serve as a deterrence to criminal minded people, thereby help to reduce the level of crime in the society.
Bello said it will also assist to mitigate SGBV especially empowering the victims to access with proven evidence captured on the app, as well as boost tackling some of the insecurity challenges in the society.
She said: “We realised that when we take SGBV cases to courts they keep asking for evidence, that’s what makes is to lose the cases. And if the perpetrator is not punished, definitely, there would be more people involved in that particular crime.
“So, if it is evidence that is required, lets come up with what can help people get the evidence ready, so as to have evidence for whatever that is done to them.
“We are ambassadors. We can the phones to capture evidence even for others, who may not have Android enabled phones. So we are not going to keep quiet”.