The Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response
Team has inaugurated the Sexual Assault Standing Order and the Sexual Assault Evidence
Examination Kit, aka rape kit.
The Coordinator of the DSVRT, Mrs. Titilola Vivour-Adeniyi,
said the team partnered the Lagos State Ministry of Health and the Primary Health
Care board for the Friday inauguration.
Vivour-Adeniyi, in a statement on Sunday, said the
inauguration was done at a training session for workers of Primary Health Care centres.
She said five pilot centres were picked for the SAEEK,
comprising Ogudu, Ita-Elewa in Ikorodu, Ajilete in Ifako-Ijaiye, Palm Avenue in
Mushin and Oshodi in Oshodi-Isolo.
She said the selection of the pilot PHC centres was
methodically done as statistics revealed that sexual and gender-based assault
and related crimes were prevalent in the areas, adding that the centres would
render 24-hour service, laboratory, HIV counselling and testing, and maternal
and child health services.
She said, “The rape kit contain necessary instruments
used for evidence gathering and examination, some of which include microscope
slides, saline water, swabs for collecting fluids from delicate body parts like
the lips, cheeks, thighs and private parts.
The kit also includes materials for blood samples,
comb, paper sheets for evidence collection such as clothing fibres and hairs, nail
pick for scraping debris from beneath the nails and gloves. The documentation
forms, which include the consent form and patient history or sexual assault
history, are also in the rape kit.”
Vivour-Adeniyi said the Lagos State Sexual Assault
Standing Order was produced to guide the provision of health care services as
well as set the minimum acceptable standard for the provision of quality health
care to the survivors of sexual assault.
She expressed optimism that the standing order would
equip health care providers with tools to facilitate examination, treatment and
management of sexual assault patients.
“The output of this training in terms of knowledge
shared with the workers will ultimately facilitate examination and management
of patients after sexual assault, and also improve the quality and documentation
of evidence collection.
“The protocol response to be adopted is now clearly
enumerated, some of which include taking the survivor or patient to a
designated area, getting the informed consent of the survivor to have the
examination, obtaining the medical history, and then proceeding to collect the
different samples necessary for forensic examination and testing,” she said.
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