English
Kinyarwanda
It is crucial for security organs and community policing groups to get training in order to have similar understanding and effective response to the pressing issue of violence faced by women and girls.
Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Rose Muhisoni, the Deputy Commissioner for Community Policing in Rwanda National Police (RNP) made the remarks on Thursday, December 17, during the training on responding to the vices women and girls face. The training attracted 150 participants from Police, Military, Correctional Services, RIB, DASSO and youth volunteers.
It was held separately in Rubavu and Nyabihu districts in consideration of the directives against the spread of COVID-19, including prior test, washing hands, physical distancing, wearing facemask and convening only 30 percent of the total capacity of the training venue.
At least 4,265 cases of defilement were recorded across the country in the 2019- 2020 fiscal year, according to statistics from RIB, up from 3,215 cases recorded in the previous financial year. Of all the cases, the majority 1,466 were recorded in the Eastern Province.
In this year alone, more than 23,000 babies were born to under-aged girls across the country.
While opening the training in Rubavu District, ACP Muhisoni observed that violence, especially against girls, is a serious concern and that security organs play a big role in addressing it through awareness and enforcement.
"The issue of male chauvinism is still ruling in families where husbands assault their wives and the latter seem to be okay with it in the name of out-fashioned culture. Some young girls are also defiled and impregnanted by their relatives and in most cases families conceal this information," said ACP Muhisoni.
Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Teddy Ruyenzi.
She urged trainees to work together with the people in communities to identify and report such crimes for the offenders to face justice.
She, however, observed that the increase in numbers is due to increased awareness and ownership by the public, who share information.
Continuous awareness and strengthened partnership between security organs and the public, she said, will help to further protect the vulnerable groups, identify such violences and bring perpetrators to justice.
The training, which will be extended to similar groups in different parts of the country, is held under the theme: "Enhancing capabilities of security organs in the management of GBV and violence against women and girls."
In Nyabihu District, ACP Teddy Ruyenzi told participants that GBV and violence against women and girls is a violation of human rights and affects human and the country's development.
"Imagine a home where a wife is abused everyday, either physically or psychologically; you can rarely expect any form of development in such a family," ACP Ruyenzi observed.
She added: "Those girls, who are impregnanted at such a tender age, they drop out of school and they are not even in position to become responsible mothers since they are also still of age to be taken care of."
Such situations, she said, leads to poverty, increase in street children born to incapable mothers and in most cases their fathers are not known, and that these children are likely to become criminals because they did not get proper upbringing.
Ultimately, ACP Ruyenzi noted, it becomes a burden to the government in various aspects of security and development.
The training is meant to stimulate mass awaress to increase understanding and response to the vices faced by women and girls.
It is also designed to ensure that the public becomes responsive by breaking the silence on GBV and violence against women and girls that occur in their communities, and to that end protecting these vulnerable groups.
