The Committee requested that the Commissioner approves the creation of a Desk Officer at Government Hospitals to ensure that victims of gender violence get quick attention.
The Committee also requested for a waiver of payments of medical bills from indigent victims of violence for seamless protection of rights of children in such circumstances.
While the Commissioner responded swiftly by asking that the Director of Hospital Services see him to work out the modalities, he assured that the Desk Officer request would get approval at least for Government Hospitals in urban areas.
In the same vein, the Committee visited the Correctional Service where they requested that issues of underaged inmates be looked into, the challenge of children born by female inmates be resolved and that Magistrates be advised that children in conflict with the law be remanded only at the Remand Home.
Meanwhile, the Controller of Correctional Service, Mr. Ovie Friday Esezobor explained that they had always ensured children were not kept in Correctional Centres and that children delivered by female inmates were only kept for one year and six months before being sent to their relatives or religious bodies for keeps until their mothers finish their jail terms.
However, to do all of these according to the Controller, the Social Welfare Officers must be involved to legally take custody of the children and commit them to any of the orphanages until their mothers were done with their sentences.
The Permanent Secretary cum Chairman of the Committee, Mrs. Agas promised to supply the details of the Social Welfare Officers in respective local government areas of the State for immediate action.
In all of the advocacy visits done, the key agenda remains collaboration in order to entrench the rights of children in the policy thrusts of Government.
