In the past three days, three different people have told me the experiences of three different friends of theirs who have been sexually abused in the past few months. A 16 year old girl raped by her uncle who lives next door. A 19 year old woman raped by a neighbour. A twelve year old girl molested by her own teacher.

The angry bitter jaded part of myself wonders why I’m so surprised. In February, UNICEF announced that child rape has increased by 42% in the past three years – largely due to an increase in family and social tensions thanks to Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown. According to Dr. Festo Kavishe, UNICEF’s chief representative in Zimbabwe, social workers report that adults unable to provide normal care, food and schooling vent their anger on children.

To combat this, UNICEF has launched the Stand Up Speak Out campaign, aimed at raising awareness of all forms of child abuse, the damage caused, how child abuse can be prevented, and importantly where to get help. But these places to get help are also struggling to cope up with the economic collapse.

In past years, Childline had as many as 45,000 people phoning into their help line each year. But this number is dropping – not, clearly, because the need for the service is any less than it has been in the past. Rather, people are losing faith in the systems meant to assist them, and so aren’t bothering to ask for help. Across the country, the social welfare offices are understaffed, stretched too thin, and unable to manage their caseloads. Bulawayo has been without a government social worker since November, so cases just aren’t being attended to at all. When the magistrates were on strike, of course, the backlog just grew. Support organisations like Childline are trying to make up the difference, by assisting with transport and brining case workers to clients, but they are also underfunded and there is only so much a largely volunteer staff can do. And more than that, for how long should non governmental organisations do the work an elected government is sworn to do – that of ensuring and protecting the rights of all of its citizens, regardless of economic difficulties.

This entry was posted on March 20th, 2008 at 2:54 pm by Amanda Atwood and is filed under Uncategorized, Women's issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.