Source: Tanzania Daily News
A SPECIAL programme to speed up the hearing of children and women's abuses by courts of law is in the offing to ease the backlog of cases pending at different levels of the judiciary.

Deputy Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Angela Kairuki told Parliament on Friday while responding to Special Seats legislator (CCM), Ritta Kabati who inquired after the delays amidst an increase in reported abuse.

"In my region, Iringa, for example, reported child defilement cases increased from 64 last year to 124 cases this year," Ms Kabati revealed. Ms Kairuki emphasised that a sustainable way to address abuse against children and women is to sensitise the public on the evils of abuse, as just sending the culprits to jail will not solve the issue.

The Deputy Minister pointed out that so far her ministry has no statistics on the number of pending cases, but efforts are being made jointly with the Department of Justice and Ministry of Home Affairs to get hold of the data.

"Once this exercise is done we will be able to publish accurate data relating to this problem," she noted. Ms Kairuki said efforts are being made to increase the number of gender desks at police stations to deal with such abuses directly.

"We so have 417 desks of which eight are doing extremely well and one of them is in Iringa where Kabati comes from," she noted. In a separate development government has improved the transportation of patients in rural areas to health centres and hospitals across the country.

Responding to a main question asked by Mwibara legislator (CCM), Kangi Lugola and Special Seats legislator (CCM), Ritta Kabati, Deputy Minister for Local Governments and Regional Administration, Aggrey Mwanri said an earlier programme funded by the governments of Denmark and Japan ended in 2008.

"It is true that there is no ambulance at Kasahunga Health Centre which is located in Mwibara constituency of Bunda District," Mr Mwanri said. He pointed out that Bunda district in Mara Region has 48 health facilities which include two hospitals, six health centres and 40 dispensaries

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