WUNRN
Please see 2 parts of this WUNRN
release on Human Rights
Violations Against Women and Girls
in Zimbabwe.
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ZIMBABWE
- Helping Victims of Gender Based Violence
Efforts
are underway by IOM, UNICEF and the UN's Population Fund (UNFPA) to provide
help and support for victims of gender-based violence in Zimbabwe after a joint
assessment mission earlier this year found that the social, political and
economic instability in the country had led to the increased vulnerability of
women and girls to sexual violence and abuse.
The three organizations have teamed up to increase access to a more holistic
care and support for survivors of gender-based violence by setting up one-stop
referral, support and response centres in areas identified as having the
largest gaps in the provision of such services.
Zimbabwe currently only has one centre for rape survivors based in a central
hospital in the capital Harare. It is able to cater to the needs of only a
small catchment area within the city.
Displacement and unstable housing have in particular marginalized large groups
of people, many of whom are women and girls susceptible to sexual violence.
Data collected during the joint IOM/UNFPA and UNICEF assessment mission in May
found that protecting women and girls in particular was a priority but one
which lacked resources to implement any response, supporting IOM/UNFPA findings
in a 2008 study on mobile and vulnerable populations.
Then, more than 50 per cent of 1,900 respondents, both male and female in
Mberengwa, Mudzi and Mutare in Midlands, Mashonaland East and Manicaland
Provinces respectively, said that women and girls among mobile and vulnerable
communities are forced to have sex against their will.
Worryingly, one in four displaced women interviewed said that they had been
forced to have sex at some point in their lives while nearly 35 per cent of the
women reported being worried about the risk of rape.
Underlining the lack of services to help victims of gender-based violence, 46
per cent of the respondents said they did not know what to do to cope with rape
experiences.
With victims largely blamed and stigmatised by society for sexual abuse and
violence, most survivors never report what happened to them, leaving them to
face the physical and psychological consequences of rape by themselves, at
times with life threatening results.
In a bid to help address some of these gaps, IOM/UNFPA and UNICEF will
establish centres in three provincial and three district hospitals in the
country, with the district centres at Makoni, Mudzi and Mberengwa
providing a link between local communities and the more established, yet less
accessible province based services. Provincial centres will be established at
Gweru, Marondera and Mutare Provincial hospitals.
The centres will provide health care, psycho-social support and legal aid to
victims of gender-based violence, targeting about 150,000 people, mostly women
and children but also some men.
"The aim is to ensure a survivor-centred approach to our work by doing
whatever is needed to get the right help to the survivors," said Marcelo
Pisani, IOM Chief of Mission in Zimbabwe. "This includes centre staff
accompanying victims to other services if needed or requested and to offer
other assistance including life skills and livelihood training, and lessening
the risk for such violence in the future."
UNFPA, which is coordinating the programme, will focus on ensuring the space
and resources for the work with UNICEF coordinating the psycho-social
counselling with NGO partners and referral needs.
IOM, which has received nearly US$ 139,000 of funding from the UN's Central
Emergency Response Fund (CERF), will, with its NGO partners, provide
livelihood, life skills and risk mitigation training to survivors. It will also
establish a network of community based outreach workers to not only ensure
referral and access to services at community level, but also to help
destigmatize the centres and those who are in need of their services.
For further information, please contact Judith Chinamaringa, IOM Zimbabwe,
Tel: +263 4 33 50 48, Email: JChinamaringa@iom.int
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ZIMBABWE - ADDRESSING HUMAN RIGHTS
VIOLATIONS AGAINST WOMEN
Direct Link to Full 20-Page 2009
Report:
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