EASTERN PROVINCE

 KAYONZA —  At least five men have reported being harassed by their spouses in Kayonza District, an official in charge of gender has said.

Addressing journalists shortly after a one-day workshop on sexual and gender based violence at Hotel Novotel in Kigali on December 12 Jane Mutesi, who represented Kayonza District vice mayor in charge of social affairs said the issues of wives harassing their husbands were prevalent in most families of Rwandan returnees from Tanzania.

The workshop was organised by United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) under the theme "Collecting disaggregated data on Sexual and Gender based violence in Rwanda”.

 "Recently a man reported his wife for having confiscated all family property and denying him to take any family decisions. The wife had decided to chase the husband away accusing him of not contributing anything to the family other than spending all the days drinking alcohol,” said Mutesi.

Asked what steps were being taken to reverse the trend and how they get the complaints, she said: "We do our work from the grassroots level because it’s hard for a man to publicly express family issues especially in the court.

We collect information from neighborhoods of the victim and try to handle the matter by first counseling him and later he reveals full information.”

She noted that unlike the general belief that violence is subjected to women, most men in Kayonza are psychologically tortured by their wives through abusing and denying them right of decision making in the family.

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