RWANDA: Government acts against gender violence

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RWANDA: Government acts against gender violence

NAIROBI, 6 June (IRIN) - Rwanda has launched an 18-month programme to combat
gender and sexual violence, the minister of gender and women's development,
Angeline Muganza, said on Thursday from the capital, Kigali.

The US $627,379 USAID-funded project, launched on Tuesday, has four
components. One of these is to conduct a survey in August for women of
reproductive age covering the period before and after the genocide of 1994.
The results would assist in understanding how women in this category had
experienced sexual violence during the specified periods, the similarities
and differences in terms of who was affected, who perpetrated the offences,
where, when, and why, USAID-Rwanda reported on Thursday.

Another component will the training of service providers involved in dealing
with issues of gender and sexual violence. Health officials, police and
Gacaca (traditional court) judges will also be trained to help women and
girls who suffered during the genocide. NGOs have been identified to
implement the programme. The development of sensitisation and training
material began on Tuesday.

"There will also be a media campaign, involving radio and television, to
create awareness of the magnitude and negative impact of gender-based
violence in society," Muganza said.

The government effort would involve civil society, NGOs and the
international community. An indication of the government's commitment in
this issue was the fact that the justice ministry was already taking action
on cases of violence and sexual abuse, the state-run ARI news agency
reported on Wednesday.

It said statistics showed that for every 1,000 children raped, the courts
were processing at least 600 cases. The perpetrators involved in 300 of
these had already been found guilty, while the guilt of those accused in
another 200 was being presumed.
In her address at the launch of the 18-month programme, Muganza said,
"although the exact number of survivors of sexual and gender violence
committed between 1990 and 1994 is not known, it is thought that 250,000
women were raped and that 30,000 pregnancies occurred from rape."

She said that a 1999 study by Avega-Aghozo on Violence Against Women in
Rwanda showed that 80.9 percent of survivors showed symptoms of trauma, 69
percent are HIV positive, 13 percent had broken vertebrae, 12 percent lost
leg usage and 7.9 percent had their legs amputated. The study focused, she
said, on physical and psychological torture, and sexual violence during the
genocide.

[ENDS]

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