Oxfam for ending gender based violence in Malawi
Oxfam in Malawi has assured government of its continued support to programmes aiming at ending violence against women and girl child in the country.
Country Director of Oxfam in Malawi, Lingalireni Mihowa said this Friday at Namalomba School ground in the area of Traditional Authority (TA) Kalembo in Balaka as part of the commemoration 16 days of activism against Gender Based Violence (GBV).
She said the support her organization and other non-governmental organizations are doing complements government effort in promoting equality among men and women to foster the country’s development agenda.
Mihowa pointed out that despite all the efforts the country is still faced with a lot challenges to addressing issues of GBV in most communities.
“We believe the issue of GVB can be reduced if all stakeholders took part in the initiatives which are designed to end any form of violence among communities. We are applauding men who have committed themselves to be champions to ending violence against women and children among their communities,” the Country Director said.
She said 16 days of activisms offer various stakeholder to remainder the society on the negative impact of promoting GBV.
Mihowa said there was need for greater mind set change among various stakeholders if the battle to end GBV was to be achieved at all levels of our development.
The Country Director appealed to Women Caucus of Parliament to lobby for increased funding for Ministry Gender so that the programmes they have should be implemented in full.
“The Ministry has the capacity to deliver various set objectives of empowering women and reducing cases of violence but they are faced with a challenge of low budgetary allocations in parliament which has proved to be a setback,” she pointed out.
Mihowa noted that the girl child needs to be inspired to remain in school for them to contribute effectively to the national development.
“If we are to encourage more girls to remain in school, we need to do a lot of modeling buy involving outstanding women in society in order to inspire them to aim high with their education,” she explained.
Chairperson for Balaka District Council, Michael Sauka commended Balaka Police for providing Victim Support Unit (VSU) services to the communities.
He said the VSU services have helped to reduce cases of GBV among communities in the district.
“Awareness meetings that have been conducted by Police in schools and communities have had a good response and has drastically helped to enlighten them where to report cases of violence without being victimized,” Sauka pointed out.
TA Kalembo requested government to consider providing a reliable vehicle to Ulongwe Police Unit for them to continue responding favourably to night calls from members of the public.
She said the Police Unit continues to face transportation problems despite making presenting the request for the vehicle long time ago.
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