To effectively curb violence against women in marginalised communities of Matabeleland South, all stakeholders must come together to work side by side. A united front will enhance the development of well informed strategies and plans that facilitate the arrest of sexual abuse perpetrators while promoting healing among sexual abuse and gender based violence survivors.
The Community Youth Development Trust (CYDT) organised an All Stakeholders Indaba that featured members of One Stop Centre from Gwanda, nurses from different health institutions and leaders of local institutions like churches and traditional groups. The meeting was also graced by young people who have been previously trained by CYDT to become active SRHR champions in their respective communities.
This Indaba was conducted under the theme “It takes me and you to end violence against women”. The idea behind the theme was to raise awareness on the need to actively involve everyone in the fight against sexual abuse and gender based violence.
The pertinent topic discussed on the day was the need to develop groups that will operate at Ward level to raise awareness on GBV as well as help victims to report their cases. This come after the realization that there is lack of avenues to report these cases especially in marginalised communities where there are neither police offices nor health structures.
These groups will consists of young people both girls and boys as well as community leaders who could be church or traditional leaders. Speaking in the meeting, representatives from One Stop Centre, a family planning institution said they are extremely committed to end violence against women, noting that it was imperative that all stakeholders do more action than simple talking and promising to act.
The nurses said they are already friendly to young women seeking health services and also encouraged those that have been sexually abused to visit health institutions as help is more effective when these cases are reported on time. This shows the positive impact of the SRHR project that was conducted by CYDT in Gwanda in which these nurses and other health practitioners were taught to be nice on young people seeking health services.
While the positive impact and sustainability of the project was realised, the organisation observed that parents still need to be engaged more often on the issue of sexual abuse and gender based violence after one of them noted that she still finds it difficult to speak on sexual related issues with her children.
Overall, CYDT was pleased by the level of engagement and knowledge demonstrated by the SRHR champions. These champions extremely supported the idea of developing local groups that we believe will be victims oriented. The champions said they are ready to take part in these groups, hence they will be waiting for the next meeting to discuss further.
In the coming activities, CYDT wishes to engage members of the local government on the matters with the hope that they will be understanding and supportive of the initiative.
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