TheCable

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) says 80 per cent of cases of human rights violations in Plateau are a result of domestic, sexual and gender-based violence.

Speaking during an interview on Tuesday, Jennifer Abe, NHRC coordinator in Plateau state, said the commission has received 14 complaints from widows on issues of discrimination.

Abe said most of the cases reported by widows are on landed properties meant for inheritance, adding that other prevalent cases of human rights violations are unlawful detention by the military, including harassment and torture.

“Mostly, what we get here has to do with issues of domestic violence, sexual and gender-based violence, issue of neglect and abandonment, exploitation abuse of children. So. this constitutes about 80 per cent of the violations,” NAN quoted Abe as saying.

She urged victims of human rights violations to report the cases so as to get professional help for their mental health, adding that the commission is involving the community in addressing the issues.

“What we do is to do a lot of aggressive sensitisations on human rights issues because the commission has since discovered that most people do not know that they have rights and that when these rights are being trampled upon, they do not know where to go to seek for remedy and redress,” she added.

“So realising these facts, the commission engages in a lot of enlightenment programmes, awareness creations through seminars, workshops and face-to-face interaction with people coming at community levels.

“Sometimes when we have the opportunity to go to the rural communities, we try to have what we call village square meetings where we tell them about the commission’s functions and its mandate and let them know about their rights and when these rights are violated where to remedy and redress.”

In August 2022, the commission received over 200,000 complaints of violence against women and children.