THE British government has reiterated its commitment to assisting Zimbabwe in the fight against gender-based violence (GBV) which has increased to alarming levels in the country.
British ambassador to Zimbabwe Pete Vowles said the fight against GBV was a huge priority for his government to support partners in Zimbabwe to tackle the vice.
Vowles was speaking at a breakfast meeting focused on preventing gender-based violence and screening of clips from the documentary, India’s Daughter, in Harare early this week.
He said the British were ready to assist start-up programmes focused on fighting the menace.
“We already have two examples, I can talk to which are on our panel today. One was Leslie from Think Equal, which the UK government funds and Think Equal work with children between the ages of three and six on early years education, focusing on emotional and social education, which is critical to get their mindset from the very beginning.
“The evidence shows that if you work with children in the early years, that has an impact on behaviours later in life. So that's at one end of the spectrum.
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“The other was the NETI leading the SAFE programme, Stopping Female Exploitation and Abuse, which is a programme that works with couples on counselling and it works with couples in the community and helps couples to think together, plan and it has an impact on reducing violence in families.”
Vowels said besides the two initiatives, the British government was also working on funding more activities in Zimbabwe.
Speaking at the same event, Think Equal representative and India's Daughter director, Leslee Udwin said the fight against gender-based violence was far from over hence it warranted collaborative action to succeed.
She applauded Primary and Secondary Education minister Torerai Moyo for giving a thumbs up to their strategy and allowing it to be adopted in schools.
“You are very lucky, being Zimbabwean, to have Minister Torerai Moyo as your Minister of Education. He is an utterly enlightened, visionary human being.
“You know what he has decided to do?, to give the Think Equal programme to every child, an infant being and it only takes one year of this learning for the children to be transformed for the rest of their lives into upstanding, decent, responsible human beings,” she said.
Commenting on the outcomes of her documentary, she said, “I came to realise later, because it's going to take a lot more than protests, no matter how robust and wonderful they are, to end violence against women.
“It's going to take, as I discovered in the course of making the documentary, through my interviews with the perpetrators of this crime, a mindset change and that can only be achieved in very particular ways.”
India's Daughter is a documentary about the gang rape and murder of 23-year-old medical student Jyoti on a moving bus in Delhi in 2012 and the protests which this event ignited throughout India.