The Sunday News
THE Government is setting up gender friendly units around the country to assist victims of gender-based violence, Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development Minister Cde Nyasha Chikwinya has said.
The country joins the rest of the world in marking 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. This year’s campaign is running under the theme: “From peace in the home to peace in the world: Make education safe for all.”
“We are setting up gender friendly units around the country where victims of gender-based violence can get help,” she said, adding:
“As Government we are concerned about the extent of gender-based violence. While we acknowledge that both males and females are victims and perpetrators of violence, it has been seen that men are the major perpetrators of violence.
“We have to deal with this scourge and end it. A victim of gender-based violence can now visit these centres and get counselling and other important information which can prepare them to face the society once more. These centres were set up after the realisation that victims spend most of their time nursing wounds instead of getting counselling.”
The Minister is expected to officially launch the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence in Bulawayo on 16 December.
United Nations communications specialist in Zimbabwe Mr Sirak Gebrehiwot applauded the Government’s move of setting up centres to help victims of gender-based violence before encouraging Government to tackle the root cause of gender-based violence.
“Preventing and ending violence means tackling its root cause, gender inequality. In 2014, the World Health Organisation called it a global epidemic and a public health crisis, given its impact on one in three women experiencing physical or sexual violence at some point in her life — mostly by an intimate partner,” said Mr Gebrehiwot.
“With the recent adoption by world leaders of the Sustainable Development Goals, a bold new global development agenda in September 2015, a critical juncture was reached in global recognition that violence against women and girls is a serious but preventable problem. The gender equality goal, Goal Five of the SDGs, aims to end all forms of discrimination against women and girls. It recognises violence against women as an obstacle to fully achieving the development agenda and will provide comprehensive indicators on what we should do to address that goal.”
