Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs Pauline Tallen has distributed relief materials to some vulnerable groups in Ibadan.

 The groups are vesico vaginal fistula, VVF, patients who were neglected by their husbands and people living with disabilities.

Among the relief materials distributed to the beneficiaries were bags of rice, textile materials cooking oil and other consumables

While presenting the items to some of the patients at VVF Centre, Jericho, the Women Affairs Minister, Mrs Pauline said the ministry was concerned by the plights of women, persons with disabilities as well as young boys and girls who suffered series of assaults, and gender-based violence in the country.

Mrs Pauline, who was on advocacy visit to Ibadan on the need for men to support women, stressed the need for stakeholders in Oyo State to discourage early child marriage, female genital mutilation and other abuses.

Oyo State Governor, Engineer Seyi Makinde, while receiving the minister who paid a courtesy call on him at his office, pledged to support initiative designed to liberate women from poverty and gender-based violence in the state.

Some beneficiaries including Miss Oluwakemi Ajibuwa and Idowu Memunat and a mother of four months old baby without limbs, who was allegedly denied the opportunity to breastfeed her baby by her husband for two weeks, commended the minister for the gesture.

The event featured a town hall meeting where the minister, civil society organizations, religious leaders, women and other stakeholders lent their voices on the need to support women and end gender based violence in the state.

Rotimi Famakin