AT least 500 traditional leaders in Mutasa district have undergone training aimed at enhancing child protection response mechanisms in their communities.
They received training under a child protection programme implemented by the Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare ministry with support from Unicef’s Child Protection Fund III and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).
Headman Cosmas Sakupwanya said the training was mainly focused on preventing child abuse, promoting children’s rights and being watchdogs for children’s welfare.
“We have had cases of children who are beaten by their guardians, which is a form of abuse. We also have cases of child marriages, cases of rape and the like,” Sakupwanya said.
“This programme has helped us to understand how to handle these cases according to the law.
“We also make sure that all the children have birth certificates and engage parents to make sure that all children have their documents in place.”
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He said they were duty-bound to make sure every child eligible in the district goes to school.
“When there is a case of a child who is failing to go to school due to financial challenges, that is when we approach the Social Welfare and the Basic Education Assistance Module,” Sakupwanya said.
The traditional leader also said headmen in the district were mandated to share the knowledge and skills they gained through the programme with their communities.
“So each headman has to call meetings to meet all village heads and their secretaries to do sub-trainings. We also make sure that each time when we hold meetings, we must have time to speak about child protection,” Sakupwanya said.
“We also have community care workers and the child protection committee, where people in the community can easily go and report cases of abuse.
“These people were also trained under the same programme.”
Headman George Chidawanyika said they were able to assist children to obtain birth certificates. “We are grateful for all the teachings that we got from this programme,” he said.
“It helped us to understand that every child needs to have a birth certificate.
“(For) many families where the parents would have separated, children were struggling to access birth certificates but we were taught how to handle those issues.”