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Alternate Chairman of the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team (DSVRT), Omotilewa Ibirogba, on Monday said the State had, as at Friday last week, recorded 950 reported cases of domestic, sexual violence, and child abuse.
This is more than 100 percent increase from a total of 452 similar reported cases in the whole of last year, according to her, adding that 10 offenders had been registered and convicted.
Ibirogba made the revelations in Alausa during the unveiling of 6820 USSD and SMS short code, launched by the the State government, to enable Lagosians report and receive prompt response to incidents of rape, child abuse and domestic violence.
“The team obtained approval from the Nigerian Communications Commission to have a short code for reporting incidences of sexual abuse, child abuse and domestic violence in the State.
“Simply by dialling *6820# or sending an SMS to 6820 with a keyword, e.g, child abuse, users will be fed information on steps to take for the responsible active case. A report would also be logged and forwarded to the appropriate law enforcement, Agency or Ministry,” she said.
Ibirogba emphasised that upon sending an SMS to the short code or dialling *6820#, relevant information from such users such as name, location, specific case or complaint-, would be obtained which would in turn ensure that the whole response team is automatically activated.
The Chairman added the two GSM service providers, Airtel and MTN, had partnered with the initiative at no cost,with translations available in Yoruba, English, Pidgin, Igbo and Hausa.
She also said that such the disabled would be carried along as people would be trained to cater to their needs, as rovision would also be made for assistive devices to help carry them along.
For the illiterate class who may not be able to use the facility, she said in such instances, there would be reliance on eye witness accounts and help from good citizens to provide relevant information.
“The use of technology in this manner to combat sexual and gender-based violence, is the first of its kind in Nigeria. We are therefore most optimistic of the great results that the short code would yield in our fight against sexual and gender-based violence,” Ibirogba said.
