The Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Oluseun Abimbola disclosed that SGBV will serve as a first responder unit to address complaints arising from Sexual and Gender based violence.

At the inauguration of the SGBV team, Mr. Abimbola stated that the Governor had earlier signed into law the Violence Against Women Prohibition law in Oyo state, to curb the increasing incidence of child defilement, domestic violence, and related offences.

He noted that the establishment of the SGBV team would give fire and bite to the enforcement mechanism for this law and other related laws against such offences in the state.

According to the Attorney General, “it has become clear that dealing with sexual based offences would require an intervention beyond the traditional structures to be able to provide counsel to victims, provide professional medical assistance to extract evidence timeously, offer legal services and a shelter where necessary for victims, among other things.

“The SGBV team will serve as a one-stop shop to deal with the multiple issues arising from such offences,” Mr. Abimbola said.

He charged the team to hit the ground running by immediately setting up a help line for quick alerts by complainants, open a sex offenders register to document and deter these heinous crimes and ultimately midwife the establishment of a Sexual Offences and Gender Based Violence Referral Center which would eventually house the unit and warehouse all the offered services.

Mr. Abimbola said that the team is a collaboration of ministries and agencies including Ministries of Justice, Women Affairs & Child Welfare, Health, the Nigerian Police, Legal Aid Council, Civil Society, NBA, and the Media, with representatives drawn from these agencies and MDAs on the team.

The Attorney General urged the team to shun traditional and cultural nuances that may hamper the work of the team, but to be decisive and courageous in implementing the laws on the subject matter in order to cure the mischief.

In her comments, the coordinator of the team, Mrs Modupe Awosemusi thanked the Governor for approving the establishment of the team, promising to discharge their responsibilities judiciously.

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The centre which was established in 2005 was primarily set up to provide alternative conflict resolution mechanism through a non- adversarial forum for settlement of disputes between parties who voluntarily submit to the mediation of their disputes.

The Director, Oyo State  Mediation Centre, Barrister Tunji Thomas who made this disclosure while interacting with journalists on Tuesday in Ibadan explained that the centre has the responsibility for the provision of free legal services and advice to the citizens of the state.

The breakdown of cases and issues resolved reads thus: 2011 (94.66%), 2012 (82.23%), 2013 (73.95%), 2014 (75.36%), 2015 (84.70%), 2016 (79.34% ) while 263 out of 320 cases have been resolved between January – August 2017 .

According to Barrister Thomas, the centre is usually flooded with cases ranging from landlord and tenant matters, employer and employee matters, family inheritance matters, matrimonial matters, debtor/creditor matters, contractual /commercial matters, labour matters, land matters among others.

Stressing further, he also observed that the years of 2011-2017 can be regarded as a glorious era because of the support the centre enjoyed from the state governor, Abiola Ajimobi.

“It is a reflection of the present administration peaceful and violence stance”, he noted.

Attributing the level of successes recorded to the commitment of workers and other stakeholders, while calling for more encouragement from all the stakeholders, Thomas, however advocated for more training and retraining of mediators.

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