Women and girls in Cameroon have been suffering from emotional and sexual violence for a long time.
Statistics from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA published in 2020 states that 56.4% of women in Cameroon have suffered emotional and or sexual violence.
While 39% of the national Cameroonian population lives below the poverty line, the rate rises to 51.5% for women- parts of their statistics read.
The situation is even rife in the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon that have been in a socio-political crisis for the last seven years.
OCHA says the rise in Gender Based Violence is as a result of displacement, presence of either government forces or the non-state armed groups and Economic hardship as a result of the crisis.
Cross section of the participants
It is for this resolve that Pearl Foundation, Mother of Hope Cameroon (MOHCAM) and the National Organisation of Human Rights- North West office organised a one day workshop on: Preventing and responding to Gender Based Violence and providing psychosocial support to women and girls of the North West and South West Regions.
Speaking on behalf of these organisations, Nsono Josephine highlighted that the training is to effectively link survivors of GBV to Frontline service providers.
CEO, Mother of Hope Cameroon
CEO, National Organisation of Human Rights
This to mean community leaders should be able to identify the kind of support that a survivor needs and refer the person directly.
The organisers were emphatic that a poorly managed case can instead breakdown and expose the survivor to further harm.
"When survivors are not effectively linked to needed services, they go and come back worse than they were" Nsono told The Observer.
The community leaders have been presented with the various organizations that provide medical services, psycho-social support, mental health services, legal services and protection services in a bid to improve effective referral.
Practical sessions
Civil society organisations have also been brought onboard so there is a link up with community mobiliers and leaders. To ensure the skills were gained, there was a practical session to demonstrate effective referral and counter referrals in linking survivors to required services.
The project is funded by the US-State department.
By
Ndi Tsembom Elvis
0 Comments