SDGs provide vast opportunity to address GBV

Lazarus Sauti

Harare lawyer, Emmanuel Samundombe, was recently slapped with a four-year jail sentence after he bashed his pregnant girlfriend until he suffered a miscarriage.

Samundombe appeared before Harare magistrate, Bianca Makwande, who convicted him of physical abuse and sentenced him to 48 months.

In another case of gender based violence (GBV), High Court judge, Justice Tawanda Herbert Chitapi, slapped a Kuwadzana woman, Mitchel Chiteure, with a two-year jail term for killing her husband, Denver Chitsungo, in a poverty-induced brawl.

The judge also said cases of GBV were on the increase and they are being committed not only by men on women, but vice-versa as well.

Statistics from the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) reveal that cases of domestic violence have increased by a whopping 34 percent in 2015 compared with figures recorded the previous year.

“In 2015, more than 20 500 cases of domestic violence were received by the police,” the figures show. “The 2015 figure represents a 34 percent increase as a year earlier in 2014, cases of domestic violence recorded by police were about 15 300.”

Domestic violence, described by one expert as a “cancer’ is being felt right throughout southern Africa.

In neighbouring Zambia, GBV is also on the increase and the Zambia Police Service says the country has recorded an increase of 7.7 percent in GBV cases in the first quarter of 2016.

An official with the Zambia Police Service, Rea Hamoonga, says a total of 4 998 cases of GBV were reported countrywide during the first quarter of 2016 compared to 4 615 cases reported in the first quarter of 2015.

“This translates in an increase of 383 cases giving a percentage of 7.7 percent,” he adds.

Domestic violence and rape, two most common forms of GBV in Namibia, also disproportionately affect women more than men (over 90 percent).

In South Africa, a country well-known for horrific gender-based crimes, especially of a sexual nature, violence against women continues unabated without any serious consequences for the perpetrator.

Various studies in the country still report that 40 to 50 percent of women have experienced intimate partner violence, but incidents of violence against women are severely under-reported, as is violence in general.  

GBV is firmly entrenched in Zimbabwe and most southern African countries.

“Truly speaking, living in an abusive marriage, I let the power of fear and guilty take over my life,” confesses, Nyepu Tarumbiswa, a victim as well as perpetrator of GBV.

“My husband cheated me. He also physically and emotionally abused me,” she says, adding that anger forced her to revenge and abuse her partner.

“I refused him food as well as starve him sexually. Further, I used words which were few, but hurtful to also inflict pain on him,” she says.

Dejectedly, Nyepu was let down by her family as well as church members.

“My family and church members were quite when my partner was beating me. They urged me to fight my battles,” she says. “They tried to lecture me when I embarked on my revenge mission. Shame!”

Nyepu’s ordeal shows that GBV found its roots in social, cultural, economic and historical undertones, sentiments echoed by Justice Chitapi who also urges zero tolerance towards GBV.

“Our society should graduate into adopting a zero tolerance for domestic violence. This is the only way that domestic violence can be eliminated if not reduced to negligible levels,” he says, adding that development partners as well as schools and the community should join hands and preach zero tolerance towards domestic violence.  

Counsellor, Rudo Chitando, says society, through the family nucleus and other associate groups like churches and other social cohorts, should play its role by condemning violence at all levels.

“One writer once said that society is the mother of us all. It makes; it rewards,” she says. “This society should play its role in supporting the government, non-governmental organisations, faith-based organisations and other civic society organisation to fight gender based violence.”

Gender activist, Garikai Mangongera, says GBV programmes should send messages that depict both men and women as victims as well as perpetrators of gender based violence.

He adds that policy makers in GBV should embrace and adopt Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as they provide vast opportunities to curb violence at all levels.

SDGs, says gender activist, Daphne Jena, provide a structure that can be effectively used in terms of pushing forward as well as accelerating efforts and advocacy initiatives towards ending GBV.

“SDGs include a target to end GBV by 2030. They also include targets on violence, trafficking, violence as well as torture against children, sexual violence and other harmful practices,” she says.

“The government and its partners should, therefore, work hard to attain these goals and end all forms of violence at all levels.”

Jena adds that finding solutions to reduce as well as respond to GBV is not only important to the lives and well-being of girls and women, boys and men and societies in the country, but to the successful implementation of SDGs.

She sums up: “Opportunities in SDG 3 (ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages), 4 (ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all), 5 (achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls), 6 (ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all) and 11 (make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable) can serve to address issues that have a link to GBV.

“These goals offer real opportunities to bring transformative change in girls and women’s as well as boys and men’s lives.”