By Binta Jaiteh
Kajali Sonko, deputy permanent secretary (DPS) at Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Welfare has reaffirmed government continuous commitment towards the empowerment of Gambian women, noting that the only way to completely eradicate domestic violence in society and among other negative issues affecting women and girls is to do away with culture of silence and ‘maslaha’ syndrome.
The two-day convergence which also brought together cluster monitors, with funding from UNICEF was meant to orientate the participants on child marriage, GBV and including the deeply rooted cultural traditional practise known as Female Genital Mutilation/ Cutting (FGM/C).
Mr Sonko, who was speaking at the opening of two-day training for school teachers and authorities in the Upper River Region (URR), said: “Within the period of 2019 to date, the number of domestic violence cases has increased threefold. This is because people were staying together.”
“Previously, we were counting a thousand or less than that. But, recently when we put up our statistics, we realised that we have over 2,800 cases of domestic violence. The Ministry and its partners have also put-up mechanisms in addressing these issues, which among them are the creation of a hotline. The hotline was meant to enable people to report cases of domestic violence,” the DPS explained.
Few of these cases, he went on, reached court level, and “This is where we have a challenge. People report cases to relevant authorities. But when these cases are filed, it’s the same people that will come to you and say they want to withdraw their cases,” he disclosed.
Gender Based Violence (GBV), he continued doesn’t only affect women’s, thus, some men are also beaten by their wives, saying there are lot of contributing factors that are related to GBV ranging from economic, culture among others.
The government of The Gambia, he added, is committed to women empowerment, claiming that recently the president launched one of the most progressive programs that will empower Gambian women and this program is called Women Enterprise Fund.
Statistically, he said, LRR has the highest number of wife-battering followed by the URR, but “The Ministry in this aspect is also making tremendous efforts to completely stop the menace.”
He noted that in 2013, the government enacted the Sexual Offence Act and the Domestic Violence Act, while the children act was amended in 2016 with a view to prohibit child marriage and the Women Act of 2020 was also amended in order to prohibit FGM.
However, despite all these laws in place the fact that the issue is still happening. “Again, we also want to commend the ministry of education for putting up measures in order to protect our young girls in schools.”
Janko Jawneh, Principal Education Officer for Region 6, said the training was important and it is timely.
Sainey Cham, monitoring and evaluation officer for Women’s Bureau dwelled on significance of the convergence. She urged participants to live up to expectations and disseminate the knowledge gained to their colleagues in their various schools