PEOPLE FROM TRADITIONAL AUTHORITY MWAKABOKO TRAINED ON HOW TO SPOT AND REPORT GENDER BASED VIOLENCE
By Lusungu Mzembe (TFM)
The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace under Karonga Diocese through its Enhancing Effective Protection and Promotion of Women and Girls from Gender Based Violence has trained community members from Karonga District on how to spot and report cases of Gender Based Violence to relevant authorities with an aim of putting an end to Gender Based Violence in their communities.
In an interview with CCJP Karonga Diocese field officer Moses Mwakisalu, he stated that a lot of people feel neglected and distance themselves from taking part in social issues as they live in remote and hard to reach areas and that causes them to not have the urge to report cases of gender based violence as such CCJP has trained representatives of different groups from Ngisi and Ngana in the area of Group Village Headman Mwandambo so that people should easily spot and report cases without any hindrances.
“We saw that it was of high importance to teach the people from this area and enlighten them on how to identify gender based violence, how they can assist survivors who have encountered gender based violence, how they can draft their reports at community level and where they can report to relevant authorities. Many people in the communities are not aware of the process as such we believe that through the training a lot of them will now report the abuse they face at the same time reducing cases of gender based violence in the district,” Mwakisalu said.
Mwakisalu said that the training will also help them to come up with data about gender-based violence for each area and know the exact number of gender-based violence cases and it will also indicate which group is more prone to abuse and help CCJP Karonga Diocese in implementing their project as they will be able to identify gender-based issues that are affecting people in the district.
Commenting on the matter chairperson for the mother group at Ngana area, Tumpe Mwanjere commended CCJP for the development saying that it will help a lot of people in the area to report cases of gender based violence as they have been enlightened on issues of gender based violence and where they can report such cases if they encounter one or witness one.
“We are very thankful for the training in our area as it will help us to identify gender-based violence, write reports at community level, we will be able to assist survivors by also guiding them to get proper treatment in cases of rape and we are aware of the places and authorities where we can report the cases. We will also inform the chiefs to mobilize community members and teach them the significance of reporting gender-based violence,” Tumpe said.
Among other representatives who attended the training are community leaders, religious leaders, representatives from mother groups, community policing units, teachers, male champions, clinicians, youth groups and child protection workers.
CCJP Is implementing the Enhancing Effective Protection and Promotion of Women and Girls from Gender Based Violence project (Timazge Nkhaza) in the three Traditional authorities (TA) of Mwakaboko , Kilipula and TA Kyungu with funding from NCA-DCA Joint Country Program.