Preliminary Statement of Pre-Election Violence in Anambra.

Introduction
The convener of the Stop Violence Against Women in Politics (Stop-VAWIP), Gender Perspective and Social Development Center (GPSDC), commend the efforts of all stakeholders, including security personnel, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and other civil society organizations (CSOs) for continuing to perform their roles and responsibilities for ensuring an inclusive, participatory, and secure gubernatorial election in Anambra State on November 6. With less than 3 weeks to the election, it is incumbent on stakeholders to double their efforts in support of the model elections we all desire.
Background
The Stop-VAWIP campaign is an initiative that seeks to establish the link between gender-based electoral violence and the low level of participation of women in politics. Since 2015, the campaign and its state partners such as GPSDC and Stop-VAWIP Response Committee have documented incidences of violence against women during off-cycle governorship elections in Bayelsa, Kogi, Osun, Kaduna, Rivers and the recently conducted governorship election in Edo State. The campaign has raised awareness of violence targeted at women during elections and conducted advocacy initiatives to relevant stakeholders on the need to mitigate violence against women in politics and provide effective survivor response services where it occurs.
Stop-VAWIP is an initiative supported by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Survivors Service Centre
GPSDC established a hub in Awka to receive calls on its violence against women hotline with the support of the Anambra State Ministries of Justice and Women Affairs and the police. The hub will serve as the central location for all operations, including where incidents of violence against women from the hotline are tracked and crucial support is provided to survivors through collaboration with security services, the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Women Affairs, National Orientation Agency (NOA), lawyers, medical services and other relevant stakeholders.

Prior to the election, the Stop-VAWIP partners widely publicized the campaign hotline – 0800-400-4444 – on radio shows, posters, PSAs on TV, and billboards. With reporting mechanisms in place such as the hotline, perpetrators of electoral violence may become more averse to committing offenses against women.

Women of Anambra State will have the confidence to participate in the election, knowing the concerns of women are being addressed. We urge all voters to use the hotline as an effective medium of tracking and reporting incidents of violence against women and other gender-related violence.

Response Protocols
The Stop-VAWIP campaign deployed a critical system for coordinating service delivery and timely access to services for survivors: the response protocols.

Through the protocol, hotline operators would share incident information with key stakeholders with the mandate to respond to such incidents. These stakeholders constitute the Stop-VAWIP Response Committee whose duty is to evaluate cases as they are received and determine how to verify and address them.

As incidents are verified, the response protocols deploy respondents to survivors and/or the location of the incidents for on the spot security protection, health services, and referrals, where necessary.

These respondents include police, social workers, and other survivor support services in communities, such as shelters and counselors.
Pre-Election Violence in Anambra State
Stop-VAWIP

Although women constitute a good percentage of the registered voters in Anambra State, electoral violence remains a major threat to their participation in the November 6 polls.
Ahead of the elections in Anambra, GPSDC trained and deployed 105 local mobilizers who are working in collaboration with the Community Mobilization Officers (COMOS) of National Orientation Agency (NOA).

Together, they are conducting voter sensitization, to raise awareness on what constitutes VAWIP, encouraging women and youth participation in the election, and also linking survivors of gender-based electoral violence to services across all LGAs in order to mitigate electoral violence in the state.

These efforts will rather help to increase the participation of women in the electoral process.

Preliminary Findings
There is palpable fear among voters due to pre-election violence experienced across Anambra State during political party campaigns.

Women expressed their concerns that adequate measures are not in place for the protection of the womenfolk during the election as there was no visible rescue mission on the part of security agencies in volatile places. This was witnessed in pre-election violence.

The violence mostly occurs in densely populated areas and casualties recorded spread across men, women, and youths.

The vast number of registered women voters interviewed stated categorically that they may not participate in the electoral process due to the cases of violence either witnessed, heard, or viewed on the media.

Media feedback
The spate of violence and unrest in the state may cause women to restrict their children from coming out to vote.

Women are generally not allowed to participate in politics because of deep-rooted patriarchal system prevalent in southeastern Nigeria..
Anambra men support women politics fully at the community level (Umu Ada).

Some women are not well-informed enough to take up political positions.

A good number of women have distinguished themselves in their careers but only few have been able to succeed and survive in politics.
Women only go as far as men allow them in politics.

The effort women expend to participate in politics is more than that of men.
Most women don’t vote for other women.
Recommendations:
Stop-VAWIP condemns any act of politically motivated violence that has taken place so far in several parts of the state. So much has been done by our team to ensure

that violence particularly against women is mitigated and youth are made aware of electoral offenses to deter them from perpetrating violence.

The choice of selection of the Situation room on Election Day should be a place with proximity to police station. As such Amawbia headquarters is seen as a red zone where it is difficult to perpetrate crime in the state.

A communiqué should be developed to the security on the current security concern in the state on the need to have grand stand on matters concerning the release for the Leader of Indigenous People of Biafra.

There should synergy between the coalition for Stop VAWIP and the security agencies
There may be difficulty in assessing the situation room on Election Day, as such effort should be made to get pass for the team.
ASATU women are very important in mobilization and must be part and parcel of the project in reaching out to the people.

Arrest of perpetrators by law enforcement agents may have to be delayed. Arrest can be made after the election so as not to create impression that they are been used as agents for other political parties.

We call on all stakeholders, community leaders, government officials, political parties, and law enforcement agencies to put efforts together to establish measures for the protection of voters and ensure that all perpetrators of violence are apprehended and duly prosecuted to deter further occurrence.

Political parties should adhere to their codes of conduct for elections and call on their supporters to stop perpetuating violence.
We also want to encourage citizens of Anambra State to come out and vote without fear of intimidation and abuse of voter choice and to report cases of violence in their communities and polling units.

We call on INEC to be unbiased and conduct a free, fair, and credible governorship election on November 6.

The full participation of all registered voters including women and men will define a free and fair election in Anambra State.

Conclusion
The Stop-VAWIP Response Committee is committed to awareness-raising, advocating for behavioral change, sensitizing citizens on gender-based violence (GBV), tracking and responding to cases of GBV, and improving women’s political participation in the state. The Committee will also continue to encourage women’s participation in electoral and political processes. For media inquiries please contact:
Mr Emmanuel Ubajekwe +234 7035810100 (Stop-VAWIP)
Learn more about #StopVAWIP @ GPSDC/Stop-VAWIP (Instagram) @StopVAWIP on Facebook or visit our website @www.stopvawip.com.
Long live the people of Anambra State. God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Thank you.