Elizabeth Macleod, a Scotland-based security expert, has expressed concern over the silence of parents and guardians of girls who are sexually harassed in reporting their abusers to the police.
The expert made this known at a one-day workshop for stakeholders, organised by her team in partnership with Borno Police Command in Maiduguri.
Macleod, who is also a Police Adviser to the British Council in Nigeria, encouraged girls, parents and guardians to always build confidence and destroy fear while taking decisions to report sexual abusers to the police.
The security expert, who had been working with stakeholders in rural communities of Borno for about two years, identified cultural and religious influences as the major challenges why victims of sexual violence remain silent in most cases.
Macleod, therefore, urged community members, parents and guardians to help rebuild the confidence of the girls who were sexually abused to break their silence and ensure that those responsible were being prosecuted.
She insisted that people must come together to police their communities and make their communities safe for the girls, saying both the community and police must equally work together for the safety of girls in the society.
Also speaking, DCP Ahmed Bello of Borno Police Command, said that the workshop was aimed at building the capacity of personnel, who were expected to resume to duty post in various communities, where the presence of police was minimal due to insurgency related problems in the past.
Bello said that the command was preparing to return to communities to carry out its constitutional responsibility across the 27 council areas of the state.
He also said that the command had already created a sexual and gender-based violence desk in all the divisional headquarters ready to attend to all sexual and domestic violence related issues without delay. (NAN)
