The Sunday News
Locadia Mavhudzi, Midlands Correspondent
HEALTH stakeholders implementing the DREAMS (Determined, Resilient, Empowered, Aids-Free, Mentored, and Safe) project in Midlands have identified Lower Gweru District as an emerging key Gender-Based Violence (GBV) hotspot in the province.
It emerged during a recent DREAMS GBV hotspot mapping meeting that 15 primary schoolchildren dropped out from school at Bambanani Primary School in Lower Gweru as of January this year. National Aids Council district officer Ms Sithabile Sibanda said there are various factors influencing the rise in GBV cases including emerging small-scale mining activities, and internal migration.
“GBV is rampant in Lower Gweru, with the use of machetes, axes, knobkerries, swords, spears and other dangerous and offensive weapons by small-scale miners (amakorokoza) as they move from place-to-place in the scramble for minerals. Young girls continue to be victims of such abuses. Resettlement areas and new growth points are also hotspots for violence, for example, Makepesi, Maboleni and Insukamini areas,” she said.
Musasa Project officer Ms Agness Muuya also said they have attended to more women from Lower Gweru since the onset of the lockdown.
“I can not reveal the statistics off head but I can confirm that we have attended to GBV victims from Lower Gweru and the figures continue to rise. We work with legal and health service providers to make sure that victims of abuse receive all the necessary support,” she said.
Adolescent girls are among the most economically vulnerable groups — significantly more so than adult women, men, or adolescent boys. Across all socioeconomic groups, women worldwide live under the constant threat of gender-based violence: physical, sexual, psychological and emotional abuse.
DREAMS is an ambitious initiative to reduce new HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women by 40 percent in 10 sub-Saharan countries, including Zimbabwe. It involves empowering adolescent girls and young women to protect their health and well-being is critical to achieving an Aids-free generation.
Under the DREAMS initiative, adolescent girls and young women are being provided with a core package of services that includes HIV testing, pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis, prevention and gender-based violence support, family planning, social protection, educational subsidies, and economic assistance for parents and caregivers of highly vulnerable girls. Empowering adolescent girls and strengthening family and community support structures are critical to stopping the spread of HIV.
