Despite all the country-wide efforts to fight Gender Based Violence (GBV) by both government and the civil society, the number of reported cases are still high.

According to officials in the recently instituted Gender Monitoring Office (GMO), the reason GBV cases remain high is partly because there is lack of coordination of activities, low skills and less knowledge of laws by the concerned parties.

The revelation was made yesterday during a one-day workshop in Kigali that brought together GMO officials with different stakeholders to seek a solution to the problem.

Speaking to The New Times, the vice president and head of department in charge of GBV in GMO, Eugenia Kabageni, said that the overall objective of the meeting was to indentify the different partners they work with and their respective roles in fighting the vice.

"We admit that on the field, very little is changing in comparison with the efforts we put in to fight these cases. There has been lack of coordination. Every organization is doing its own stuff yet we all have the same mission,” said Kabageni.

She was however, optimistic that after the meeting, there would be much improvement since the roles of different partners would have been identified and defined.

"We expect a clear coordination and partnership that will have an impact by reducing cases of gender based violence countrywide,” she said.

The workshop brought together representatives from government institutions, civil society and gender clubs from institutions of higher learning around the country. 

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