29 April 2011
FIRST lady Thandiwe Banda has said violence against women in sport and society is a human rights violation that is not acceptable, thus the need to come up with practical solutions to stamp out its occurrences and support the recovery of victims.
The first lady said this on Wednesday night when she officially opened the Southern African consultative meeting on violence against women in sport under the theme ‘Step up to the challenge’ being held at Hotel Inter-Continental in Lusaka.
The consultative meeting, which ends today, is being held under the auspices of the Ministry of Sport, Sports Council of Zambia and National Organisation for Women in Sport, Physical Activity and Recreation (NOWSPAR) with the support from Norwegian Confederation of Sport (NIF).
She said sports administrators should ensure that victims of abuse were helped when they reached out for help, saying the job should not be left to the Government alone.
“No one victim of abuse should ever feel there is no alternative. We also need to assure that victims are not alone. We need to make sure resources are available for them in their greatest need,” she said.
She said sports organisations and administrators had to embrace their duty of care to the people, including women and girls who participated in sports, and urged for guidelines to be set up to prevent violence against women.
The first lady said the Southern African consultative meeting was a welcome demonstration that the sporting community was doing something positive and provocative to help disadvantaged women in sport.
And Sports Minister Kenneth Chipungu paid tribute to the first family for the support they continued to render to sports development and also ensuring equality of women in sports.
Chipungu said combating violence against women required a multi-sectoral and comprehensive approach such as ratifying women’s rights conventions, domesticating legislations to implement them, information sharing and taking measures for policy implementation and gender equality financing.
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First Lady Warns Against Gender Violence