Standards and Guidelines for Medical Management of Victims of Violence in Akwa Ibom State

The Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act – VAPP Act enacted in 2015, is a bold move by the government to redefine the way gender-based violence is handled in
Nigeria. First introduced to the National Assembly in 2002, several years of advocacy and lobbying by partners and stakeholders under the auspices of the Legislative Advocacy Coalition on Violence Against Women led to the passage of the Act by the National Assembly and the eventual assent by the President, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, on
25th May 2015.

In June 2015, the Federal Ministry of Health, with support from Ipas, held a stakeholder meeting in Abuja to strategize on the way forward regarding the operationalization of
the health-related provisions of the Act. One major consensus at that meeting was the need for the development of Standards and Guidelines (S&G) to operationalize health
aspects of the VAPP Act. A major outcome of that meeting was the nomination of the technical committee to implement the agreed next steps. On 1st March 2016, the Honorable Minister of State for Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire inaugurated the technical committee with the GASHE division of the Federal Ministry of Health as secretariat and mandated the body with specific terms of reference for the implementation of the Health Sector component of the VAPP Act. The inauguration marked a major milestone in the process of achieving the goal of the Act.