Harare (New Ziana) -An alliance of five child rights organisations, Joining Forces Zimbabwe (JFZ) said on Wednesday while the country has laws to protect girls and women from sexual violence, it is not fully implementing them to eliminate the social ill.

In a statement, JFZ said the continued sexual abuse of young girls was a social ill that undermined the quest for equity and quality of life for the girl child.

“Collectively, more still needs to be done to strengthen prevention of sexual abuse and timeous response to the same.”

The JFZ said the recent reports of pre-teen girls from Tsholotsho and Bindura getting pregnant due to sexual abuse were shocking and showed that the violation of girls’ rights continued unabated.

It said the cases had shown that children needed to be empowered to recognise abuse, have more safe spaces and effective mechanisms for child friendly reporting.

“We applaud the reporting of such cases in order for justice to be served because reporting sexual abuse of girls is critical in bringing perpetrators to account,” it said.

Joining Forces Zimbabwe was formed in 2017 and comprises Plan International, Save the Children International, SOS Children’s Villages International, Terre des Hommes International Federation and World Vision International.

The organisations want to use the collective power to accelerate change to secure children their rights and end violence against them through piloting and scaling innovative and effective approaches worldwide that are driven by the voices and needs of children.

New Ziana