KIGALI - As the world celebrates the International Women’s Day today, the United Nations Rwanda Office has called on men to play a leading role in the fight against Gender Based Violence.

The acting UN Resident Coordinator in Rwanda, Dr. Joseph Foumbi, said that UN in Rwanda works with partners to involve men in this fight and to strengthen women’s economic power.

On the National Level, the International Women’s is will be held in the Eastern Province under the theme ‘Women and Men: United to end violence against women,’ and will specifically focus on women, who form the biggest number of GBV victims.

The UN statement quotes Foumbi as saying, "…ending violence against women is imperative to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and Rwanda has shown how important women’s effective participation can contribute to national development.”

Available statistics indicate that Rwanda has made considerable progress in improving gender equality and women’s empowerment in many sectors – a case in point is the (56.25percent women representatives in parliament, 34percent of ministers are women, 86.6 of all vice mayors at the district level in charge of social affairs are women.

The UN release states, "On this occasion, Government, Civil Society and the UN in Rwanda join forces to highlight that violence against women is a serious violation on human rights that has severe social and economic costs.”

In a brief telephone interview, the Minister for Gender and Family Promotion, Dr Jeanne d’ Arc Mujawamariya said that public sensitization campaigns top the agenda as a way of eliminating Gender Based Violence (GBV).

"We are putting a number of policies in place to ensure that the still existing violence in the Rwandan society is eliminated.  have hope that one day Rwanda will live with no single case of violence against women,” said Mujawamariya.

Some of the policies that have been put up in the fight against GBV include the GBV law, the National Steering Committee chaired by the Ministry of Gender and coordinated by the National Women’s Council (CNF) to address the fight against this violence as a priority issue in Rwanda.

In a separate development, the Regional Director of United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), Dr Josephine Odera, said in statement that "engaging men as partners to raise the profile and response is imperative in this fight. This is a lesson we have learned from successfully working with local communities, Rwanda National Police (RNP) and Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF).”

The statement also goes on to quote Odera saying; "we each have the responsibility and opportunity to shape the present and brighten the future.

Emphasizing the men’s role in the fight against women violence, the Resident Representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Thérèse Zeba, called for public dialogue and open debate and also urged authorities to enact and enforce laws to bring justice to offenders, and to provide health services and social support to survivors on the Genocide against the Tutsi.

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