 And you are welcome. Again it is still the run-up. We promise you that we'll be bringing you an advocate who is an advocate for health rights of women and youth initiative and emerging organization passionate about alleviating the issues of young people. I'm not going to do all that introduction. I'm going to let Immanuel tell us about himself. You're welcome to the program. Thank you so much, Rache. How are you doing today? I'm great. How are you? Good to see you. You're looking good. Thank you so much. All right. Let us start off with the background of your organization. What are you guys about and how long have you been doing this? All right. Thank you so much. I'm Plostivi Afrika for having me here. My name is Immanuel Etim and I manage the organization Advocates for Health of Women and Youth Initiative. The organization is focused on alleviating the issues of young people, which focuses more on women and youth. My advocate for health and rights of women and youth initiative, we are passionate because the issues of gender-based violence has become something that bothers on the society and the economy as a whole. They had various effects of gender-based violence across the world. You see that this affects women more. One in three women is sexually abused at a certain point in their life. That's what the statistics say. For us, we are passionate about creating awareness and advocating against these issues in the workplace. Generally in the society, how men should treat women better, give them more, you're smiling now, give them more opportunities. Be kinder basically. That's what we are trying to do. Just make the world a better place. We believe that if we empower women more, give them access to the tools that can make them better, train them, educate them, give them better opportunities that will have a better society. Trust me. Today is International Day for the Elevation of Violence Against Women. Obviously, that's all we have in the studio. Let's look at it. A lot of times, conversations crop up on the social media. People are like, men also go through violence. Why is nobody talking about it? I'm an advocate for, do not hit anybody though. Do not show any form of violence against any human male or female. Apparently, there hasn't been a lot of, don't get me wrong, there has been actually, but I feel like a lot of people do not yet understand the reason these conversations go on in the first place. What is your take about the orientation of boys towards staying nice, like you said, or kinder to the female gender? The thing is, we are not saying that men do not explain gender-based violence, but I would say that because the society expects that a man should be the man, so most men that go through gender-based violence should suppress it, because they look stronger, they kind of suppress that and try to push that away, go through life and all of that, but then men still go through gender-based violence, but the effect that gender-based violence has is worse on women, because the effect is uncountable, and the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, this year focuses on uniting. It says, okay, let's unite, everybody, government is doing their part, the CSOs, civil society organizations are doing their part to create this awareness and do all of that, but what can we do within our communities to come together? What do you do when you see somebody victimizing a woman? Do you keep quiet? Do you say, oh, she's not my sister, she's not my mother, she's not my auntie, you look the other way? No. So United is saying, everybody within the community, we need to come together, we need to speak up, because the truth is not everybody that is bold enough to speak up. So when you see somebody victimizing somebody, somebody she body shaming somebody, somebody beating a woman or something, but a male or female, you need to speak up for that person, because the truth is, that person may not have the ability at that time to speak up. So there are various ways we can support these conversations and keep pushing it forward. All right, so the conversations when it starts is usually about how you're trying to give orientation to your boys, like don't be nice to your sister, it starts from the home, and that's building up to the question I'm about to ask. How do, at both points, or what causes this? Ibu Ronyala, you're not a mad person, you don't just get up and start beating up somebody, you're being aggressive. What brings people to this point where they are aggressive, what causes it, if I'm to just ask it in a straight up question, what are the causes of violence against women? So very great question, the thing is, everybody, the kind of life we live from our background, from our home, the home front is the basic foundation, even beyond what we learn in school, everything we learn, we start from our home, what does our father do to our mom, what does our mom do to our father, our elder brothers, our elder sisters, you observe this thing. I have a less than two-year-old daughter, I noticed that for the past two years, I just get to find out that the mannerisms, when I see her, I see myself, because she does certain things like me, and it tells me that, hey, you need to respect what you do in front of this girl. So these are the places, these things come from, where you need to be careful what you do in front of your children, because they are watching. If you're a man and you always beat your wife, trust me, there is 80% chances that your son would do the same to his or wife or girlfriend. So the foundation, if the foundation of the thing is destroyed, then you can't really get anything out of it. So it's important, even from the home front, and beyond that, it's okay for you as a father or as a mother to talk to your children about these things. Hey, be nice to a woman, be kinder, okay, can you lend a helping hand if you see someone needing in need of help, what can you do to help educate them? Before we now come to the society, because if you don't lay that foundation, it's very difficult for them to even listen to people outside, because hey, my father doesn't tell me, my mother doesn't tell me. So the foundation is very important. So when you see people doing all of this, it's actually from the home front, which is very important. So that's why the education we are doing in our organization is to educate even families, educate young people in schools, we have programs where we go to schools to educate young people across secondary schools in Lagos State, we go to different churches, we create awareness, we talk about these issues, and you'll be shocked because people actually go to gender-based violence, and they are not even aware. You understand, there are people that go through these things and they are not aware when you keep talking about it, because some people think, okay, maybe that's how the man loves. Any man that wakes up every time the man sees you, he spanks you, you need to understand red flags. Even when you're dating a man, what are the things this man would do that you might be pointing to, okay, this man might be an aggressive person in two, three, four years' time, because these signs are always there, but we tend to... Love is blind. Wallowing the laws, you know, shenanigans, and you know, we don't see this thing, but it's important that you observe, you read, the internet is available for us to educate us, you know, and I mean, there are a lot of organizations out there that are doing things to support women, plug into it, and take advantage of that, yeah. Alright, how do you think these, you know, violence and not being nice to women has affected women? I want to show what to those people that would say, we've been through us and we came out nice. Trust me, nobody came out nice. I've worked with over 50 people that have gone through various forms of gender-based violence, you know, the effects of gender-based violence cannot be overemphasized. You have women that have gone to abuse drugs because of the trauma that comes with abuse. It has sexual abuse, domestic abuse, you know, either trafficking, you know, or different forms of other kind of abuses, you know. So people come to abuse drugs. Now somebody is already going through gender-based psychological issue that affects them, you know, and they now get to use drugs. So you know that it extends from, you know, the psychological effects of the abuse they had to them abusing drugs and it will end up in rehab and rehabilitation is expensive. And the truth is you also have other effects where maybe people become unproductive, you know, they become very unproductive at work, they are not able, you know, to live their life 100% because of these issues of gender-based violence, you know, then their health condition, because most rape cases you see, nobody gets the time to say, okay, let me use a condom. You know, so there are also health problems that come with it, STIs or STDs that, you know, people may have HIV or other sexually transmitted infections or diseases. You know, so the effect of gender-based violence is so long, really. So that's why we are putting our foot down to say, hey, let's end this, let's come together, let's unite, let's pick up, let's get help when we need to, you know, don't think that you are going through this by yourself. There are different avenues where you can actually get help for yourself, yeah. Okay, taking it up from where you just stopped, different avenues to get help. You've been in advocacy for a very long time and you've been doing this fight against gender-based violence for, you know, quite a significant amount of time. What is the significance of this initiative for you? So for me, right, I am very passionate. Like, if you see me talk, right, you would be like, okay, maybe this guy has, you know, I mean, the kind of work that we do, when you hear the stories that women go through, young people, you know, maybe you're trying to get a job, somebody would tell you, oh, I need to get down with you, you know, we need to have sex before, and even when you do, they don't even give you the opportunity, you know, so all of these issues, I mean, there are various issues that people go through, that a man that is battling a wife or a wife that is battling a man, you know. So, I mean, there are various, so far we are very passionate. We are like, no, we can have a better society. Things are not meant to be this way, you know. I mean, so for us, advocates for health and rights of women and youth initiative, we put our foot down, we provide care for people, counseling support, you know, and I mean, for people that need, you know, rehabilitation centers where they can get help for maybe sexual abuse or trafficking issues, we have other organizations that we partner with where we have safe houses across the Lagos that we put women in these places for them to get the help that they need, you know, for themselves, because the truth is, there's an extent of abuse that people go through that you may need to do therapy for about 12 months or so on to come out of it, even after them, you need to follow up and all of that. So, we provide all of this for people to, you know, to get a better life and it's a lot of work, actually, if you ask me, and I know even in Lagos, the Lagos State government as well, you know, they provide support as well. They have the domestic violence unit where people also get help, you know, in one form or the other. So, my own is, we are just passionate, like, okay, people should don't keep quiet about these things. If somebody abuses you, touches you wrongly, you know, makes any advance in any way, whatsoever, either online, physically, you know, don't keep quiet. Tell your friend, tell someone, talk about it, you know, because sometimes we feel ashamed about these things. Was it my fault? Was it because I was wearing a short dress? Was it because of my hair? Was it because of this? It's not your fault. Nobody has the right to abuse you sexually, emotionally, physically, or in any way that you think is your fault. No. It's the fault of that person, right? It's never anybody's fault. It's the fault of that person. So, because most times people that are victims would always say, okay, it was my fault. Never. It's never your fault for anybody to abuse you. It's the fault of the person and you don't have any issue. The issue is always with the person that abuses people, yeah. Alright, that's a very passionate one actually. Okay, so what would you say are the things that you would want to see put in place? For example, you do this. You're doing it at an individual level with your organization. Like an NGO. How do you think the government or the society or individuals out there can join and make your work easier? So, the thing is most times just like I was saying earlier people go through these gender-based violence issues and when they're talking to people, people will tell you it's your fault or maybe you went out at night wearing the wrong dress. Why didn't you wear a jean under so that when they are trying to access, come on. We need to first of all attack the abuser. Not the person that was abused. You attack the abuser first and the law should be very strong in a way that anybody that abuses anybody, you can't go scot-free. I know that even in Lagos State, if you report any case of abuse to the government, the person can never go scot-free. So we need stronger laws like across Lagos, across Nigeria where people take immediate action 24 hours emergency services that would be there once you call. People respond quickly. The thing for this year is unite. So that's one of the ways we can also unite and fight gender-based violence issues in our country. Provide educational support, care empowerment for women and girls that go through all of these issues in our society. Today is of course the day mapped out for alleviating the violence against women. Your organization is a big one in this game. Do people have any activities mapped out for today? For this week there are various activities because it's not just today it's a 16-day activism. That's what the UN maps it out but it starts today and during the 16 days everybody is encouraged to do any program that would create awareness just like what you're doing here in Plus TV International, well done. Creating awareness about these issues, advocating about these gender-based violence issues in our society. So for us in our organization on Sunday we have an Instagram live session because we believe we have a lot of young people online. How do we reach these young people is through the internet. So we have an Instagram live session where we talk about red flags just like I said earlier when people just feel that guy raises his voice at me that's him, that's how he is. You don't know that those are red flags there are certain things you see that you need to probe more to know this guy like this would I be comfortable to be with this guy in the next 2-3-4 years if somebody, every little thing he slaps you and you say that's his love language then you're going somewhere else we need to create this awareness talk about these issues and how can we unite. So on Sunday by 4pm on our social media page advocating near you we'll be having an Instagram live sessions where we have people in the sector come together to talk about these issues and moving forward we also have content on our social medias to help people create that awareness and keep speaking up and advocating for the vulnerable in our society. Ok quickly because we're rounding up now I think somebody is abused and they are willing to get help because you mentioned how that people should be open to getting help if I am willing to get help but I don't know where to go to can you give us some places that You can call us 080 3610 138 You want to take that slowly Oh yeah you can call us 080 3610 138 that's 1888 You can write us at advocatesforglobalchange at gmail.com You can reach out to us on our social media on our DMs, Instagram, Twitter Facebook, advocates near you send us a message and we'll take it up from there really because the truth is sometimes people may not really know these channels, how they can channel their complaints and sometimes people don't even they are not even bored enough but you don't even need to another thing is you don't even need to be supporting the abuse anybody that sees any sign, sometimes you see children a child that was very lively all of a sudden you see the child every time the child sees you you need to prove that there is something going on either that child is abused or is on the verge of but most times people can't speak up so you don't even need to be the person that is abused when you see these signs you speak up send us a DM, send us a WhatsApp take it up from there I wish we could continue having this conversation but quickly let me ask you one final question because you just mentioned how that child could see you that's actually leading up to my next question what are the signs she would see and you would know or feel like this person is probably in need of help or is being abused when you notice that you saw someone before the person is always very lively the person smiles at you and suddenly for a period of time the person every time you see the person will be timid want to be alone lock themselves up in the room those are the signs you need to speak with them do you need help how can I help you let them trust you to be able to open up to you there are various signs if you saw someone, the person wearing lively colours all of a sudden you see the person wearing black or with the person yes, you know I like to wear black if you like to wear black I like to wear black as well but then if you are wearing lively colours all of a sudden for a period of time you start wearing black or dark colours I need to ask you what's going on can we talk how can I be of help to you we need to just probe and just speak up really thank you so much Iman or Etin, it was nice having you on the runoff this morning keep up the good work it is still the runoff the next section will be coming up very soon after this quick break do not go anywhere, stay with us