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.