Zambia records 90 defile cases per month in 2012

Zambia has been recording about 90 defilement cases per month since the start of this year, signalingthat the country still faces challenges in tackling one of the growing problems, the Post of Zambia reported on Monday.A special unit under the Zambia Police dealing with victims of various gender-based violence- the Victim Support Unit (VSU)- has expressed concern that the incidences of sexual and gender- based violence such as defilement were still high.The coordinator of the unit Tresford Kasale said cities were reporting the highest incidences of defilements because of increased awareness and that most people in rural areas were still experiencingdifficulties in reporting such cases.“I will give you an example of north-western province, where we have recorded about 53 cases of spouse battering and 25 cases of defilement for the first quarter this year. It is actually different with Lusaka (the Zambian capital) because these numbers recorded in north-western province can be tripled in Lusaka because we receive such kind of reports on a daily basis,” he was quoted as saying by the paper.The official further said they were anxiously waiting to hear government regulate the sale of traditional medicines and concoctions by traditional healers, saying it is one of the contributing factors of increased defilement cases and other sexual gender-based violence incidences such as rape case.“These traditional healers are also contributing to cases of sexual gender based violence because they go round the townships selling concoctions to men, especially to have their private parts enlargedfor instance. These are some of the cases that we have been dealing with lately and the people reporting such cases are in numbers,” he added.Last year, the unit recorded 1, 939 cases of defilement of girls countrywide.