A rapid assessment conducted by the Forum for African Women Educationalists of Zambia (FAWEZA) on the livelihood of young girls in Kapiri Mposhi has revealed that truck drivers are sexually abusing several of them.
A similar survey was conducted by CAMFED in 2007 and revealed the existence of various forms of violence, both sexual and physical, in schools against female pupils by male school teachers and schoolboys.
FAWEZA programmes manager, Edith Ng’omba said FAWEZA Central Province chapter undertook a rapid assessment of safety and the security situation of girls in Kapiri Mposhi because of high presence of travellers both foreign and locals.
Ms Ng’omba said truck drivers in Kapiri Mposhi made their temporary resting sites en route to various destinations and that put a number of schoolgirls at a high risk of sexual abuse and exploitation.
She said a large farming community surrounded the town with scattered squatters and village settlements located far from most schools and pupils walked long distance, making schoolgirls vulnerable to abuse.
Ms Ng’omba said this at the weekend when she presented to Education Minister Dora Siliya a pictorial album consisting of different pictures on girl-child abuse and exploitation situation in Kapiri Mposhi.
She said the objective of the campaign was to identify spaces where girls experienced most violence and highlighted situations and factors that were threats to school girl’s safety and security in Kapiri Mposhi.
She said the campaign was aimed at engaging school managers, community leaders and the general public to make them recognise the risk factors that compromised girls’ safety and put in place regulations to protect them and ensure their retention in schools.
“As you may be aware, Kapiri Mposhi town lies on the highway to the northern part of Zambia and to the borders of Congo, Tanzania and other east African countries. As such it has a high presence of travelers, both foreign and local,” Ms Ng’omba said.
She said FAWEZA found that weekly boarding pupils such as girls lived in rented lodging, making them vulnerable to sexual violence.
She said the girl-child in such situations were at a higher risk of dropping out of school due to pregnancies since Kapiri Mposhi had an influx of truck drivers.
And speaking when she received the album, Ms Siliya called on various organisations to work closely with her ministry to address challenges faced by vulnerable children in many communities.
She said her ministry was aware several children, especially the girl-child, were faced with all forms of abuse such as sexual harassment and organisations dealing with the welfare of children should join the crusade to advocate for better livelihood.
Ms Siliya said her ministry would organise a seminar where organisations and stakeholders dealing with the welfare of children could meet to discuss how the plight of underprivileged children could be addressed.
[ Times of Zambia ]
Child abuse is rife all over the country, not only in kapiri, hiv positive men targeting young girls in the hope to cleanse themselves from aids by sleeping with virgins, In lusaka i know of two greek old pedophiles who has been sodomizing young women and girls possibly boys too, , in the villages parents selling off their girls in exchange for money (lobola) to buy mealie meal and tujilijili
let us not leave our daughters, sisters and mothers vulnerable to this nonsense. let us all work together to safeguard the integrity of our society. seriously truck drivers resist from disturbing school girls with your “magic” …what if she was your daughter. HIV is real!!! its the real Africa…
#1
why can’t inform the relevant authroties about the abuse so that the pedophile is arrested?