GBV cases up in Midlands
A TOTAL of 446 Gender Based Violence cases (GBV) have been recorded so far in the Midlands province.
The Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development, Midlands Provincial Development Officer, Mrs Sithembile Dube, said there was a need for concerted efforts to curb the surge of GBV cases in the province.
Mrs Dube said from January up to September this year, they recorded 443 cases of GBV compared to 339 cases that were recorded under the same period last year.
She said of the 446 cases, 23 were male victims who had been assaulted by women.
“So far from January up to now we have received 446 cases of gender based violence, of which only 23 are male victims,” Mrs Dube said in an interview on the side-lines of the 4th Quarter Provincial Gender Based Violence Coordination meeting held yesterday.
She said it was unfortunate that there was a surge in GBV cases at a time when they were campaigning to reduce the cases by 50 percent by the year 2020.
“Our aim is to reduce gender based violence by 50 percent by the end of 2020. We have deployed teams in urban and rural areas to educate people on how to handle cases of gender based violence and where to report the cases,” said Mrs Dube.
She said women are the most vulnerable compared to men.
Mrs Dube said they have extended their campaign to raise awareness about gender based violence as a human rights issue at local, national, regional and international levels.
“We have extended the 16 days campaign against gender violence to 365 days in an attempt to raise awareness about gender based violence,” she said. — @ patiemtsiwi