Over the course of its 25-year history, the WomenAid Collective (WACOL) has provided free legal aid and assistance to at least 62,000 women and girls.
At an event in Enugu to celebrate WACOL’s 25th Anniversary, Prof. Joy Ezeilo, the organization’s founder, revealed this on Thursday.
“Today the vision has manifested,” Ezeilo added, “because my desire when I created this organization is to impact lives and promote human rights.”
According to her, the group is widely regarded as Nigeria’s top provider of legal aid services for women and girls, and she emphasized that “we are assisting roughly 2,000 on a yearly basis.”
At our legal clinic, we register 20 cases on average each day. This is supported by data and is well-documented.
“Roughly 62,000 women and girls have benefited from free legal aid and other services since 1998. In all of our locations around the nation, we offer women and young people free legal services.
We also operated mobile legal clinics in Bayelsa, Benue, Enugu, Ebonyi, and Anambra States, as well as community law centers in Katsina, Ebonyi, and Anambra States.
These services, she continued, “are provided through the legal aid scheme and include court representation, crisis intervention and counseling, victim rights information, shelter, home visits, and other human rights abuses, such as denial of inheritance, assault, child abuse/neglect, harassment/intimidation, sexual assault/rape, and other forms of violence against women and young people.”
According to Ezeilo, WACOL is affiliated with a number of coalitions, including LACVAW, the Network of Sexual Assault Referral Centers, the Gender Technical Unit, and the Gender and Constitutional Advocacy Network.
She praised all of WACOL’s partners for their help thus far, stating that “financial support from JBDF managed by the UNDP, UNDP/DGD, EU, USAID, UNICEF and many others made successful execution of these programs and more.
Ene Obi, the country director of ActionAid Nigeria, who was also there and who was addressing through Niri Goyit, the organization’s manager for women’s rights, praised WACOL for its 25 years of work making a difference in the lives of women and girls.
Today, we’re celebrating development, the abolition of poverty, and God’s faithfulness, Obi remarked.
“WACOL is an example of a country with outstanding leadership since a competent leader will have growth, effect, and success in their country,”
