[pronut-hiv] ZIMBABWE: More children abused as situation worsens

["Pronut-HIV" <pronut-hiv@healthent.org>]

JOHANNESBURG, 23 January (PLUSNEWS) - The worsening humanitarian
situation in Zimbabwe is making children more vulnerable to abuse,
according to child rights NGOs.

"For instance, because of the hike in schools fees many children are
visiting schools [trying to negotiate payment] - it makes them more
vulnerable at the hands of teachers who exploit them," said Witness
Chikoko, acting director of the African Network for the Prevention and
Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect.

Staff at a boarding primary school near Marondera outside the capital,
Harare, were recently charged with abusing 52 girls, while 14 primary
school girls were also allegedly abused by staff members at a school in
the capital.

The Girl Child Network (GCN), an NGO working in 32 of Zimbabwe's 58
districts, said it had recorded an average of 700 rape cases of girls
aged up to 16 every month in 2005 - more than 8,000 cases. According to
GCN about 93 percent of the children raped in Zimbabwe are girls and
seven percent boys.

"The numbers are high because more girls are reporting rape cases,"
said Betty Makoni, GCN's founder and director, but admitted that the
country has a high incidence of sexual abuse. 

"It is a combination of factors: the large number of AIDS orphans;
increasing poverty, which has forced girls to take up risky professions
such as sex work and forced marriages." 

About half the girls raped were from child-headed households, she
added. Zimbabwe has one of the highest levels of HIV/AIDS in southern
Africa, which has left one in five children orphaned. 

UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) spokesman James Elder said the organisation
was "horrified" at the high incidence of sexual abuse among children,
but noted that the country had more than a million orphaned children,
which made a large vulnerable population.

UNICEF was currently stepping up its work with communities, educating
them to spot the signs of child abuse and encouraging them to
"tenaciously protect their children by establishing and supporting
functional child protection committees, where children themselves are
represented," said Elder.

"Community leaders, teachers, mums and dads - these people are the
front line in the fight against child abuse," said UNICEF's head of
child protection in Zimbabwe, Jose Bergua. "If perpetrators are going to
be stopped, if children are going to have the confidence to speak out
against these evils, then authority figures need to make it patently
clear that child abuse in their communities will not be stomached -
silence on this issue shelters the perpetrators and is a crime against
children."

Zimbabwe is going through a severe economic crisis and facing serious
food shortages as a result of recurring poor harvests and the
government's fast-track land redistribution programme, which began in
2000 and has disrupted agricultural production and slashed export
earnings.