Violence Against Women
Source: The Herald
Gender education and training to service providers such as the police, the judiciary, health and social workers was included with community sensitisation programmes regarding available services and resources for survivors including people with special needs.
This is the sixth in a series of articles analysing regional progress on gender equality and women's empowerment.
"Gender based violence is known to be widespread in the Southern African Development Community (sadc) region and presents a major obstacle to attaining gender equality and equity. Gender Based Violence (GBV) covers domestic violence, sexual harassment in the workplace, human trafficking and sexual and emotional abuse . . ." notes sadc on its website.
The same site says GBV means all acts perpetuated against women, men, boys and girls on the basis of their sex which causes or could cause them physical, sexual, psychological, emotional or economic harm, including the threat to take such acts in private or public life.
GBV in 1998, catalysed sadc member-states to adopt the Addendum on Violence Against Women a year after adopting the sadc Declaration on Gender and Development, precursor to the Protocol.
The protocol in Article 20 committed sadc state parties, by 2015, to enact and enforce legislation prohibiting all forms of GBV and ensure that perpetrators of gender based violence, including domestic violence, rape, femicide, sexual harassment, female genital mutilation and all other forms of gender based violence are tried by a court of competent jurisdiction.
The sadc Gender Protocol Barometer 2014 produced by the sadc by Gender Protocol Alliance states that 13 countries had adopted GBV laws in that year. The Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania were still to adopt GBV legislation.
Agreement was that the laws on gender based violence would provide for the comprehensive testing, treatment and care of survivors of sexual offences, which would include: emergency contraception; ready access to post exposure prophylaxis (PEP) at all health facilities to reduce the risk of contracting HIV; and prevention of sexually transmitted infections.
Nine countries had enacted laws to offer comprehensive treatment to GBV survivors. This was an increase of three countries in 2013 following inclusion of Mauritius, Swaziland and Zambia. Of the 15 sadc countries Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Mauritius, Zambia and Swaziland would need to adopt these laws this year if they are to meet the target.
sadc countries also pledged to review and reform their criminal laws and procedures applicable to cases of sexual offences and gender based violence.
This eliminates gender bias and ensures justice and fairness are accorded to survivors of gender based violence in a manner that ensures dignity, protection and respect.
In 2014, 11 countries had laws to address sexual assault but this was not the case in Angola, Botswana, Mozambique and Seychelles.
Mechanisms for the social and psychological rehabilitation of perpetrators of gender based violence were to also be in place by 2015.
Enactment and adoption of specific legislative provisions to prevent human trafficking and provide holistic services to survivors, with the aim of re-integrating them into society was another target.
Yet another was to put in place mechanisms by which all relevant law enforcement authorities and institutions may eradicate national, regional and international human trafficking networks.
Improved data collection and reporting on the types and modes of trafficking to ensure effective programming and monitoring was adopted as another strategy.
This would see the establishment of bilateral and multilateral agreements to run joint actions against human trafficking within origin, transit and destination countries.