WUNRN
SWAZILAND:
Every Third Woman Sexually Abused as a Child, Says Report
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An alarming number of girls in Swaziland have been abused |
MBABANE, 9 April 2008
(IRIN) - One in three Swazi women has suffered some form of sexual abuse as a
child; one in four experienced physical violence, a new United Nations survey
revealed this week.
The study by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) is the
first of its kind conducted in a country where anecdotal evidence suggests an
alarming number of female children are victims of abuse. More disconcertingly
still, the mushrooming population of orphans and vulnerable children in
Swaziland provide yet more opportunities for sexual exploitation to occur.
In two years, 200,000 Swazi children will have been
orphaned by AIDS - more than one-fifth of the current population, according to
UNICEF. With HIV prevalence at 33.4 percent among people aged between 15 and
49, the country has the world's highest infection rate. As a result, life
expectancy has halved from nearly 60 years in the 1990s to just over 30 years
today.
"Disabled children, children out of school and
orphans are some of the most vulnerable groups," said Jama Gulaid, UNICEF
representative in Swaziland. "Poverty and the high prevalence of HIV
create high numbers of marginalised children."
The survey, the National Study on Violence Against
Children and Young Women, based its findings on interviews among rural and urban
communities. Disturbingly, it concluded that violence and sexual assault
against girls primarily took place at home.
"We found that 75 percent of the perpetrators of
sexual violence were known to the victim," Gulaid said.
"It is not surprising that sexual abuse of girls is
a household problem, because Swazis reside in multi-generational homes, usually
isolated farms," said a researcher with the non-governmental organisation,
Women in Law in Southern Africa's Swaziland chapter. "Relatively few girls
are raped by strangers in towns because less of the population resides in
towns, and there is a heightened awareness of security there".
Rapists don't use condoms
Often the abusers are the girls' own fathers and
boyfriends. Only 43.5 percent of girls said their first sexual experiences were
freely willed and devoid of coercion: a little less than five percent said they
had been introduced to sex as rape victims.
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Underscoring the urgency of addressing violence
against girls was the AIDS crisis.
"Rapists don't use condoms, and if a father or
uncle are so inclined to rape a daughter or niece, or a boyfriend forces
himself on his girlfriend, the danger of HIV transmission is rife," said
Victor Ndlovu, a voluntary testing and counseling officer in the central
commercial town of Manzini. "Add to that the reluctance of girls to report
abuse or in many instances to rightly understand they have been violated, we
are faced with a serious public health challenge, aside from the individual
suffering incurred by the girls."
A third of Swazi females interviewed for the study
reported they had experienced emotional abuse. Often, the perpetrators had been
abused themselves as children.
"The established 'hand me down' passing on of abuse
is evident from what we were told," said Pamela Dlamini, a sociology
student at the University of Swaziland, who was one of the survey interviewers.
"Emotional abuse of girls is mostly carried out by the girls' female
relatives, who were abused themselves. Sometimes there is jealousy. Instead of
reporting an abusive husband or unable to police [the girl], the girl's mother
or aunt will treat the girl as a rival. This comes from a culture where any
post-pubescent girl is considered eligible for marriage in a polygamous
household, even if she is 13, although Swazi culture does not allow for the
incest we find rampant in households where abuse occurs."
Although officially a middle-income country, the UN
Development Programme estimates more than two-thirds of Swazis live in chronic
poverty, about the same number - over 600,000 - currently depend on food
assistance from the World Food Programme and other donor groups.
The report noted that "Violence can damage the
emotional, cognitive and physical development of children and thereby impact
economic development of Swaziland by degrading the contribution of affected
children".
The way forward
Less than half of sexual assaults and other abusive
crimes are reported to the authorities. Swazi children were found to have
sought help from the police or social welfare counselors in only one out of
five cases that resulted in injury serious enough to consult a doctor.
The way forward appears to be through education,
instructing girls about what constitutes abuse. "I spoke with many girls
who said they did not understand that they had been abused. They felt abused,
physically and psychologically, but no one told them this was not normal,"
said Dlamini.
The report backed Dlamini's observation, noting,
"The numbers suggest a lack of understanding of what sexual violence is
and how and where to report such incidents".
Educational programmes in schools would assist in a
country where primary school attendance is relatively widespread, and instruct
girls on the type of behaviour acceptable when they return home.
"The large numbers of sexual violence incidents
happening in the home underscores the hidden nature of sexual violence and presents
one of the largest challenges in preventing sexual violence in Swaziland,"
the report said.
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