The Legal Aid Council of Nigeria (LACoN), the federal body that provides free legal representation to Nigerians who cannot afford a lawyer, has taken a significant step towards strengthening its response to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).
At a stakeholder workshop held in Abuja on Tuesday, LACoN and the European Union Support to End Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (ESGBV) Programme in Nigeria implemented by International IDEA, formally validated a set of identification guidelines, revised intake forms, and referral pathways that will help LACoN lawyers and officers recognise SGBV cases when clients walk through their doors.
The workshop, held at Bon Elvis Hotel in Wuse II, Abuja, was attended by legal aid practitioners, civil society representatives, and government officials drawn from across the country.
For many Nigerians, particularly women and girls in rural and peri-urban communities, LACoN offices represent an accessible point of contact with the legal system. However, without structured tools to identify SGBV at intake, officers may miss signs of abuse or be unsure how to proceed, leaving clients without referrals to the support they need.
LACoN Director-General Aliyu Bagudu Abubakar, Esq., FCILRM, said survivors sometimes approach the Council over matters such as child custody, inheritance, tenancy, and matrimonial disputes without disclosing underlying experiences of abuse.
“If our case intake and interview processes are not specifically designed to identify the indices of these vulnerabilities, we will be failing the few survivors who come to us,” Abubakar said while delivering opening remarks at the workshop.
Delivering a goodwill message on behalf of the Honourable Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, the Head of the Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Unit at the Federal Ministry of Justice said the tools would help translate legal and policy commitments into practical support for survivors.
“Tools such as those under validation today are precisely the kind of practical instruments that translate law and policy into real protection for survivors,” the representative said.
The new guidelines provide a process for screening incoming clients for SGBV, recording relevant information, and connecting survivors with legal, medical, psychosocial, and other support services. They also set out survivor-centred principles intended to protect confidentiality, obtain informed consent, and minimise the risk of re-traumatisation.
The tools were developed under the ESGBV Programme in Nigeria, implemented by International IDEA, and went through a technical working group review before Tuesday’s wider validation.
Nigeria’s Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act 2015 covers a broad range of offences including rape, domestic violence, and harmful traditional practices. In many northern states, however, equivalent state-level legislation remains at various stages of passage or implementation, and SGBV reporting rates remain significantly below the national average.
LACoN, which operates offices in all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, is well placed to reach survivors in areas where other support services are limited. Equipping its officers with standardised screening tools is therefore seen as a practical and scalable way to expand access to justice for SGBV survivors across the country.
International IDEA confirmed that following formal adoption of the validated tools, it will work with LACoN to train officers and support rollout across the Council’s network of state offices.
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