By Prisca P Mashushu
Lilongwe, September 17, MANA: The Center for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) has called for collaborative efforts to eradicate women abuse that continues to affect them due to cultural beliefs and lack of proper implementation of laws that protect women from any form of violence.
Speaking to Malawi news agency (MANA) in Lilongwe, Michael kaiyatsa who is the executive director at CHRR explained that adequate awareness should be implemented at the community level to help people understand women’s rights and protect them from any form of abuse.
Kaiyatsa highlighted that courts of the nation should provide stiff laws to perpetrators of women’s violence and review or amend some of the laws including the Prevention and Domestic Violence Act since 2006, as one way of helping them in the fight against any form of violence or abuse.
“People should understand and know that we are in an environment where the rights of women are upheld and respected, for example legal environment is clear that any form of violence against women will not be tolerated.
“We also need to eradicate the culture of ignoring violence against women as it is contributing to cases of violence against women by being considered as an internal matter hence fueling more violence in the country,” he said.
Meanwhile, Memory Ngosi, a rights activist explained that despite campaigns and mindset change efforts to curb women’s violence some people take it as their right to perpetuate and violate women without considering their rights and freedom in the communities which is becoming a burden to the government and non-governmental organizations who fights for their rights.
She further explained that gender violence can be easily eliminated if one decides to stop it without depending upon stakeholders’ or organizations campaigns and awareness.
“For the past five to ten years we have seen tremendous success in terms of how women are perceived, equal employment opportunities and others but they still face violence in different aspects of life.
“A lot of mental health issues are occurring in this country due to financial and marital problems are also a factor to women violence hence a need to involve men in counseling to eradicate this malpractice” She explained.
Ngosi has however encouraged women to join different groups that deal with various issues of life and report any sort of violence to the right stakeholders to be helped.
“Women empowerment in financial issues should be a priority among women to help them stand on their own financially and also mindset change against women violence should be encouraged in different societies of the country,” she said.
It is worth noting that the government together with different non-governmental organizations are implementing different strategies to end women’s violence in the country.
