A local girls’ rights organisation, Tag a Life (TaLI), is reaching out to schools and communities in the country as it seeks to curb rampant cases of child abuse which are largely going unreported.
Tinashe Sibanda Staff Reporter
TaLI has today lined out a number of activities at community and national levels including dramas, poems and songs aimed at ending gender-based violence as the organisation joins the rest of the world in marking International Day of the Girl Child.
The theme for this year’s celebrations is Empowering Adolescent Girls, Ending the Cycle of Violence.
“This year’s theme speaks into TaLI’s work as we believe that empowerment is the key to ending all forms of violence. Once a girl is empowered, she can be able to stand up for her rights and display high level of assertiveness in abusive situations,” founder and director of the organisation Nyaradzo Mashayamombe said.
Mashayamombe will also today launch an album she composed and wrote which talks about child abuse and the need for communities to pay attention to the roots of violence and rape.
She said the organisation hadso far reached out to 76 schools in Shurugwi as well as 17 other rural communities in the Midlands province.
Mashayamombe said since its inception in 2010, TaLi has capacitated girls and boys through school clubs.
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Mashayamombe said TaLI was offering psycho-social support to victims and survivors of various forms of abuse.
She said since the beginning of the year, the organisation had dealt with close to 30 cases of abuse of which 19 of them are sexual abuse cases.
“There is need to continue educating communities to ensure that they protect the girl child as well as safeguard the children’s rights in general and girl’s rights in particular,” Mashayamombe said.
She said the organisation had also sensitised various communities on gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health and Hiv and Aids.
Mashayamombe said the organisation had also imparted confidence building which had since registered attitude and behaviour change in many communities of their perception of the girl child.
“Once they know their rights, they can be able to protect themselves from violence as they will be aware that it is not something acceptable.”
