WHILE Chiefs have traditionally been blamed for preserving harmful cultural practices that perpetuate abuse of women and girls, the SASA project being implemented by the Zimbabwe Association of Church related Hospitals (ZACH) has managed to rope in chiefs and other traditional leaders as allies in ending Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) in communities.
By Michael Gwarisa
SASA stands for Start Awareness Support Action (SASA) and ZACH is implementing the program in eight hot spot districts (Chimanimani, Mguza, Kwekwe and Umzingwane] plus 4 additional hot spot districts).
Speaking during the ZACH Annual National Media Conference to publicize policy issues emerging from SASA communities, SASA Model programmes officer, Mr Maxwell Hombiro said they had empowered traditional leaders in particular chiefs to be better positioned to deal with offenses involving age of consent issues at community level.
You notice that in the SASA communities, when you look at the current national policies for example if one is to impregnate a 17 year old girl, the law will not arrest him.
“At law, the perpetrator would not have committed a crime but culturally and going to customary law, if you impregnate a girl or even a grown woman, you are guilty and the chiefs will fine you for that offense. Given the current disparity in the laws, you find that the chiefs are better positioned to deal with certain issues. In the communities we work in, we try to highlight some of these gaps in the law to the chiefs so that they formulate bye-laws to protect children against abuse,” said Hombiro.
He added that they also engage community leaders as well as strengthen institutions that are mandated to fight any forms of abuse.
“If we have strengthened institutions, if we have community leaders who are working so hard to create an environment that do not tolerate abuse, we create a mass or movement against violent behavior. You now find that traditional leaders are more like activists for the SASA model. Chiefs and their wives also got into activism against GBV when they were engaged by the First Lady, Amai Auxilia Mnangagwa.”
The SASA programme is being supported by Global Fund through NAC and the program also involves engagements and maintenance of 180 Community Champions. To enable smooth referral pathways for GBV survivors, ZACH has also established 4 one-stop centres for post violence care for survivors of gender-based violence(Offering medical, legal and psychosocial services either within one location—a hospital or a stand-alone center or through a referral system that links services).
Speaking at the same event, Tracey Chauke, the ZACH Legal Officer in Kwekwe said while there have been increased cases of violence of sexual nature in her district, there has been an increase in the number of people who are coming to report sexual abuse.
“Between July and September 2022 this year, we saw 309 clients across all four one stop centres and of the 309 cases, we have 103 clients who were assisted and given free legal aid for cases of sexual abuse.
“We don’t just look at rape cases but we also look at aggravated indecent assault, sexual intercourse with minors and also cases of indecent exposure and other cases that relate to women such as property sharing etc. Of the 309 cases, 122 of them were recorded in adolescent girls between the ages of 10 to 24 which is 40 percent of the total number of cases across all One-stop-centres,” said Chauke.
She added that they offer clinical, legal, psycho-social services among other services at the one-stop centres.
“We are offering survivors post care GBV services and this is for the convenience of persons who have been sexually abused. We have One stop centres in Kwekwe, Chimanimani, Umguza and Umzingwane.
“In all these centres, there are services that are necessary for the survivor which include medical services which is the first priority we give to a survivor of sexual abuse. In a way, we are also trying to percent new HIV infections amongst survivors of sexual abuse and we do this through offering these medical services.”
Meanwhile, the Sasa Model was first evaluated in Kampala, Uganda between 2008 to 2012 to challenge harmful traditional practices and transform inequitable gender norms. The SASA model takes a structured and phased approach and is grouped into four parts namely the start, the awareness phase, the support and the action phase.
