The Rwandan National Police will, next week, launch a nationwide campaign to raise awareness about Gender Based Violence (GBV).

The Police in partnership with various organisations, both governmental and non governmental, have prioritised the fight against GBV with statistics indicating that the public is more enlightened about GBV.

The Police has gone ahead and set up a new facility at the police headquarters in Kacyiru to specifically handle GBV and child protection cases. The new facility will provide services such as intervening and rescuing of GBV and child abuse victims, counselling, investigating and following up perpetrators of GBV.

However, in spite of such programmes, statistics indicate that some victims still prefer to remain silent. According to a survey carried out last year, more than 50 per cent of Rwandans believe that a good wife owes unconditional obedience to her husband and consequently, some of them tend to think that violence against women should not be challenged.

To bring GBV to an end, it is imperative that there are collective efforts to not only eradicate the stigma associated with abuse, but to also further raise awareness about the GBV.

Challenging the fundamental causes of-and misconceptions around-GBV is an enormous undertaking that requires cooperation across multiple sectors.

Therefore, recasting GBV as a human rights issue, not just as a women's rights one, will be central to encouraging the general public's intervention in preventing GBV.

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