The Cece Yara Child Advocacy Centre is a child-centered non-profit organization established in 2016 to prevent child sexual abuse and to provide access to care, information, protection and emergency intervention for children who have experienced sexual abuse or who are at risk. The Foundation provides psycho-social, legal and medical support for children through a 24-hour free child telephone helpline and its child-friendly Child Advocacy Centres based in Gbagada, Lagos, and Abuja at a time when government research estimates the occurrence of childhood sexual violence in Nigeria to be as high as one in four girls and one in ten boys.
The Foundation’s multi-disciplinary team of counsellors, social workers, child advocates, lawyers and forensic interviewers, collaborate with government agencies and partners involved in the investigation, intervention and prosecution in child sexual abuse cases, in order to provide a coordinated response to children, in line with best practice. The Centre has also established outreach educational programs on prevention awareness for children, and specialised programs to educate adults on how to protect children from sexual abuse.