Safeguarding: What it is and How it works

In this episode, Kemi Okenyodo, Habiba Balogun and Awazi Angbalaga discuss safeguarding as an approach to addressing Gender Based Violence in tertiary institutions in Nigeria.

Transcript

Voiceover: [0:01] You're listening to partners United on gender brought to you by the Shehu Musa Yar'Adua Foundation with support from the MacArthur Foundation.

Kemi Okenyodo: [0:09] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Gender Justice podcast brought to you by the Shehu Musa Yar'Adua Foundation. The Foundation was founded in 1998 for promoting national unity, good governance and social justice. Today, we will be discussing safeguarding as an effective response to addressing gender based violence in tertiary institutions. And our guests today are Ms. Habiba Balogun and Ms. Awazi Angbalaga. Welcome to the podcast! I would ask Habiba first, how do you define safeguarding?

Habiba Balogun: [0:44] Ok? Hi, everyone. For me, safeguarding is protecting a person's rights to live, study and work safely free from abuse, exploitation and neglect. It supports individuals in maintaining control over their lives and making informed choices without being coerced. And you know, if your organization works with children and/or vulnerable adults, meaning adults who cannot protect themselves from exploitation and abuse, then you need to have stricter safeguarding policies.

Kemi Okenyodo: [1:16] Thank you, Habiba. Awazi, how would you from your own lens? How would you define safeguarding?

Awazi Angbalaga: [1:21] Just to add to what Habiba said, I think that her definition is spot on. But just from my perspective, I would say that safeguarding as a concept is simply a concept of see something, say something and make sure that the thing that you're seeing and the people that you're seeing, the things on behalf of their rights. So safeguarding is essentially just keeping an eye out, identifying trends and patterns that might be harmful to people's lives and calling attention to it so they can get help.

Kemi Okenyodo: [1:49] Thank you. What are the different forms of safeguarding and how do they work?

Habiba Balogun: [1:54] Yeah. Forms of safeguarding that a lot of people think of is referral mechanisms. So the mechanisms to refer training stakeholders to safeguarding interventions so that stakeholders can identify at risk individuals and also training people who are potential perpetrators so they know where to draw the line between normal behavior and harassment, exploitation and abuse. So in tertiary institutions, it includes training bystanders or observers or witnesses training them. How to intervene to address this kind of inappropriate and offensive and abusive behaviors when they see it. And then for the institutions to integrate trauma sensitivity into their programming if they have programming for support services for that as part of their grievance handling and disciplinary processes. And it should be survivor centered. So it should be centered around the victims of it. I hope that answers your question in terms of forms of safeguarding and how it works.

Kemi Okenyodo: [2:57] Yes. When you have a good safeguarding policy, it should be aimed at empowering the stakeholders. It should also look at protecting them. It should also look at I think it has an element of capacity building and it also has an element of communication, so to say. But if we bring it down to institutions and for the purpose of this podcast, we're looking particularly at tertiary institutions. How do you think safeguarding policies would impact on tertiary institutions? 

Habiba Balogun: [3:39] I think safeguarding policies will have an amazingly positive impact on institutions for various reasons. The first being that people who interact with that institution and we're talking about beyond the students, right? They know that they have rights, that they're empowered and educated. So we know that they have rights. They know that those rights will be upheld if they are abused and they know that they will be supported if they report or if they have issues. And that makes them feel safe to give their best to really flourish, which will be really which will enhance the institution's reputation. It can resist abuse if they can and report it if they cannot. All these safeguarding policies result in a respectful environment. They can build a really good reputation. They they will. Corruption in general will decrease because, you know, all these things, there's a lot of intersections right between any sort of exploitation and abuse and, you know, corruption of due processes or merit based progression. Mental and emotional and physical trauma will reduce. You have a spirit of empathy. People become more empathetic when they deal with each other because they've been empowered. Their capacity has been built. So I think it will have a tremendously positive effect on institutions if they have safeguarding policies.

Kemi Okenyodo: [5:05] Thank you very much. I see. I'd like to know from you who do you think should be responsible for ensuring that the tertiary institutions have this safeguarding policies in place?

Awazi Angbalaga: [5:19] I would say the entire thing has to start with institutions that exist, government institutions that exist and are strong enough that take away sentiments that will not come and say and, you know, its family matter and leave things like that. Those institutions need to exist. Then there also needs to be some sort of enforcement directly from university bodies like from the government down to all the tertiary institutions to say that, OK, every place should have safeguarding policies in place so that we can circle back and be like, OK, these people have brought this thing here, and then work can start to happen because the fastest way to have apathy is when people report things and nothing happens. The moment one person comes to say, I saw this, I think the students is in danger or a student themselves says, Oh, you know, I'm experiencing this and that and nobody does anything because there's nowhere for it to go. That's the beginning of the death of whatsoever help safeguarding can provide for us. If I report that I'm in danger in my house today, where am I going to sleep tomorrow? Is there a shelter that is going to be provided for me? Who is responsible for taking care of that shelter? Who is responsible for making sure that it is funded and it's run according to the standards, and it's up to code to keep on the entire concept of safeguarding, sometimes in tertiary institutions, you see students go there to truly study and before you know it, they get into really just spirals and they're missing school because they're dedicated. They're doing this one down, one for one religious thing or the other. If nobody understands that, even for things that are so sacred like religion, people still need to be safeguarded, then the entire concept is going to fall apart. So I would say starts with the government, and then it starts with making sure that tertiary institutions have policies and systems in place and then it goes down to all other stakeholders.

Kemi Okenyodo: [7:12] Thank you Awazi. We all have to be involved. So it's a concerted, coordinated effort. I mean, you've stressed the fact that mechanisms have to be in place within the wider society, institutional mechanisms that the mechanisms within the schools that have been set up will be locked into and that protects a more robust response framework to safeguarding. So Awazi, do you think safeguarding is something parents need safeguarding policies, processes, frameworks, things parents need to pay attention to when making choices of schools for their children or their words?

Awazi Angbalaga: [8:02] Absolutely. I definitely think that as a parent, it's something that you should be bearing in mind as a parent unless you are homeschooling your child from kindergarten all the way to a college degree, which I do not think is very possible. I mean, they would have the knowledge, but not necessarily the degree. I definitely believe that it's something that we should all take seriously. Also, I think it's also funny because many of the times it could be the parents that are the abusers, right? So nobody really wants to shoot themselves in the foot. So yes, people who are abusive might not be looking out for that. But people who are not should one thousand percent look out to see that if something is going wrong with your child, someone somewhere is looking out for you and your child, and he's able to raise a flag and your child can get help.

Kemi Okenyodo: [8:48] Thank you Awazi. Habiba, what's your take on this?

Habiba Balogun: [8:52] Well, quite a few things, actually. I wanted to build on what I was said earlier about who's responsible. You know, because many academic institutions, they embed the safeguarding and responsibility in their like academic services departments. Safeguarding also applies to children within the campus and other stakeholders who operate within the campus, service providers and so on. So I think it's really important that the students union should also be active, not just whichever unit the university embeds that responsibility, and I think the students union should make sure they are active in advocating for a policy. Their institution doesn't have it serving members to find out what's going on and providing alternative reporting channels to the existing ones if they're not working properly. As you know, as she said, it's everybody's business to make sure that it works, and they should also make sure that there is sustained training and psyco-social support for survivors. But to get back to what you are saying about what should parents be looking out for? I do a lot of work with an organization called Convention on Business Integrity and they introduced a rating system for good governance in other sectors of the economy. And what they did is score the policies and practices and you're actually implementing. You get a certain rating and that rating is published and as a result of it being published, you get preferential services from banks. You're more attractive to investors and things like that. So I think we should do something similar for tertiary institutions. We should have a published rating, which ones have safeguarding policies, which ones have reporting channels, which ones actually, you know, implement and go and investigate or have preventive take action to prevent or to respond to abuse. Which ones, you know, have training and counselling and stuff like that. If you have that sort of rating, I think for sure, I agree with what Awazi said about our cultural attitude to all of this. But I think if there's a meeting, people will now take it into account student parents, potential fellows, potential lecturers, new lecturers, donors, all of them would take that into account if they want to engage and to affiliate themselves with an institution that is not showing that it is safe, a responsible and a desirable place. So I think we should. I don't know who, but I know that many more organisations and partnering with CSO civil society organisations and clans representative bodies like student unions provide objective monitoring and to hold them to account because they know they can put it in place. But there are people might not do it. So I think we need a combination of all those things to really make sure it works and it happens.

Kemi Okenyodo: [11:45] Thanks, Habiba. And this will be my final question to both. Do you think this effort because I like what Habiba has said about compliance and ratings, this effort on compliance and ratings, should it be led by civil society? Or should civil society be looking at engaging maybe any U.S. or any other government agency to get a buy-in to initiate this process of rating?

Awazi Angbalaga: [12:19] Ok, I'm just going to take it, I think that while buying is nice and it's something that we should do 1000 percent, you know, explore, if we could, we could guarantee that it would definitely be fair and just and not manipulated. So one thing I know is that individual society we have seen shifts a lot of courses in recent history. And if there's one thing that we can take advantage of is definitely the internet. Most people are doing research there now. And if there are trustworthy individuals, independent bodies, there are institutions like that, the likes of Budgit and what's it called. If there are people that can take on the responsibility of doing these ratings, keeping those lists updated and vetting whatsoever, information comes in to a point where, you know, it's like, OK, this information is coming in. We're making sure it's not being manipulated so that these ratings are not, you know, shifting in favor of somewhere that is truly unsafe. You know, whosoever can do the actual research will be great. The reason I'm saying this is is not because I do not believe that when governments are involved, things like this move, it's to be honest, it's true. I've seen so many times when we trust the government to do something and then before we know it, it's like manipulated and the whole thing, the entire concept is gone. A quick example is the NLC, but we're not talking about that right now. I would 100 percent trust individual companies like independent companies that these ratings up. I would trust them much better especially if the people who are working on the team are people that we can see, oh, this person is not being manipulated by that because this person has made them to push this thing or that thing, you know, those kinds of things. So yes, that's what I think. I'm very curious to know what Habiba thinks.

Habiba Balogun: [14:11] So I do agree with Wesley about lack of trust. The population does not trust government institutions, but at the same time, we shouldn't let them get away with not carrying out their responsibilities. It's their responsibility, and we pay for them to play that role through our tax money and through our national assets, our national resources. So whoever the institutions should be, we might need to think about it. It might be NUC, it might be ASUU. I don't know who it is, but some government bodies should have that responsibility for surveying all the tertiary institutions and doing a rating about where they stand. So but I think we should do like check and balance. So I definitely think that a civil society organisation and there are many that work with tertiary institutions. And I also think the student union should do their own in parallel. And the reason I'm saying this is because our culture is very soft on offenders and perpetrators because of the collateral damage to their families, loss of income reputation. It's going to take quite a lot of time for attitudes to harden sufficiently against sexual harassment, exploitation, abuse and other things. Before we will now have strict compliance with the disciplinary measures before they become standard. So we need people, and when I say people, I mean people in government, those people who are there, we need them to instead consider the direct damage on the life, future and family of the survivor and the victims, not the perpetrator, which is where their focus is now. The lecture the lecture is guilty, yes, but his poor family are going to suffer his wife, his children are going to suffer. So, you know, what can we do? We need to protect the survivor. You know, who reports from media exposure, stigma, retaliation, and all of those protect the survivor first. And I think we need a parallel rating to be in place so they know that they have to be honest, they have that just like tracker, right? If we and you see publishes this report, that's why so tertiary institutions, they have safeguarding policies, they have reporting channels they receive so and so many reports, 70 percent of the reports were dealt with without any issue, 5 percent followed disciplinary and so on and so forth. And then the students union for that institution comes out and says we found out that only 10 percent of the reports are addressed and that no disciplinary action was taken. We will see a gradual shift when they realise they cannot get away with it. So I think we government should be held accountable, yes, but civil society including the student bodies, should also be involved in tracking, monitoring, surveying, reporting, publicising, especially through social media. For other institutions that are not grassroots, Maybe social media is not the right channel, but for tertiary institutions, I think I think it is.

Kemi Okenyodo: [17:21] Thank you, ladies. Today's discussion has been very interesting

Voiceover: [17:25] To join the conversation about gender and accountability in Nigeria, Visit www.partnersunited.org to report any issues you have concerning gender based violence in Nigeria. Please visit www.genderjustice.org.ng and for partnership and other enquiries, kindly contact us at info@partnersunited.org.