Report Sexual Abuse, Domestic Violence, We Will Protect You- Ambode

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode has asked
Lagosians to report sexual abuses and domestic violence, vowing that his
government will support and protect them. Ambode said the only way for a
government to fight such criminal activities is if citizens come out to speak.
The governor also said such citizens would be protected and would be fought
for. Ambode made the statements yesterday while receiving the Lagos State
Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team at the Lagos House, Alausa, Ikeja. Continue….

“We just want to appeal to all Lagosians, they should not be
afraid to speak out, we have our dedicated lines and we also know that we are
going to give resources out, at any point in time they should be ready to speak
freely to us. We would protect the identities of everyone and the fact is that
we should be the first point of call before we know the particular police
station that we want our cases to go to.

“One of my cardinal programmes in the course of the campaign
was that I was going to stand up for everyone and standing up for everyone is
actually standing up for women and children. These groups in our society are
more or less vulnerable and the weakest part of the chain in the society. So,
we need an institutional framework, we also need to create institutions that
can stand up and support them.

“The society has always been very uncharitable towards
issues that relate to children and to women. Lagos State in 2007, we did pass a
law on domestic violence. But again beyond that, the law cannot work by itself
except we create the framework that enforces our laws, that is what we are
standing for and in that respect, we talked about issues that relate to sexual
and gender violence”, he said.