Kigali, 12 October 2020-The joint campaign themed: ‘My voice-my rights against sexual abuse/Ijwi Ryanjye-Ndinda Ihohoterwa rikorerwa ku gitsina’ was launched by the First Lady HE Jeannette KAGAME this Monday, 12th October 2020. The launch took place during a high level meeting organized in the margins of the International Day of the Girl Child celebration; globally observed each year on 11th October.
While officiating this campaign The First Lady HE Jeannette KAGAME said:“When we look at all the efforts that have been invested so far, it begs the question of finding the root causes of this issue why we still experience child sexual abuse”.
“At times we are surprised by what a human being can do, and our minds can’t even understand the fact that a parent, a relative or a guardian/a teacher can abuse a child.’ Added the First Lady
The joint campaign on ending child sexual abuse comes at time when child sexual abuse have been on the rise over the past years. Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) figures show that at least 10, 456 children were sexually abused in the past three years, most of them in age bracket of 15, 17 and below 10 with 98% of them being girls and only 2% boys.
The Minister of Gender and Family Promotion Prof. BAYISENGE Jeannette underlined: ‘Addressing child sexual abuse requires working together. It should be everyone’s responsibility; us policy makers, Development partners, Civil Society, FBOs, parents and the community at large; we should all be concerned on this matter that has enormous effects on our children.’
During this high level meeting, participants outlined that child sexual abuse has major impacts on victims such as health issues including early pregnancies (for girls), diseases caused by genitals ‘damage like fistula, sexually transmissible diseases such as AIDS etc. Child sexual abuse victims also face psycho-social effects such as depression, trauma, harassment/isolation by relatives. Other effects include poverty, school dropout among others.
The First Lady called for aggressive and innovative measures to address the issue of child sexual abuse.
“I call upon everyone in your respective institution to come up with aggressive and innovative measures. Let’s think about what can be done to speed up court procedures related to child sexual offenses. Lawmakers at levels and in different organs can see if child sexual can be considered as imprescriptible offenses.’ –Accentuated the HE Jeannette Kagame
The one year campaign will focus on raising awareness at community level on preventing and responding to child sexual abuse. Other key activities organized in line with the joint campaign include launching the sex offender registry, conducting a research on root causes of child defilement cases and mapping all victims of child sexual abuse as part of providing them with holistic support.