Nigeria and the United States of America have begun a campaign towards the elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls in Nigeria.

Speaking on Wednesday at a meeting co-hosted by the National Centre for Women Development (NCWD) and the US Mission in Nigeria to commemorate the International Day of Elimination of Gender-based Violence, in Abuja, the US Deputy Chief of Mission, Maria Brewer, said it was time the two countries collaborated to checkmate the menace.

She noted that one in three women experience some form of gender-based violence in lifetime.

She said since violence against women and girls is a global issue, everybody must stand up to the impunity that leaves perpetrators unaccountable for their actions.

“Whether it is a little girl left malnourished or uneducated, a woman beaten or raped, or a widow ostracised from her community, the cost to human lives and societies is overwhelming,” she said.

Brewer said that in the US alone, the cost of violence against women and children exceeds $5.8 billion yearly, with another $4.1 billion in medical costs and a loss of $1.8 billion in productivity.

“Nigeria also pays the price for gender-based violence. Many women from Nigeria, forced into prostitution and human trafficking, die needlessly for lack of proper healthcare, face poverty for lack of an education and cannot live up to their potential to contribute to a democratic and prosperous Nigeria. Today, we join forces so that the world could offer up more than words to free women and girls from violence,” she remarked.

She pointed out that no country can progress when half its population is marginalised, mistreated and subjected to discrimination.

The Director General of the NCWD, Onyeka Onwenu, said it was high time violence against women is dealt with in Nigeria, adding that gender violence in Nigeria suggests a conspiracy of silence which conceals the nature and extent of the problem.

According to her, some cultural values and norms in the society serve to condone and reinforce abusive practices against women, manipulation and misinterpretation of religious doctrines are used to place women in bondage...

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