By Bennie Mundando
GENDER Based Violence (GBV) cases have reduced in the second quarter of 2020 compared to what was recorded last year during the same period.
Police spokesperson Ether Katongo says during the second quarter of 2020, a total of 4, 409 cases of GBV were recorded by police with the gender victim disaggregated Data indicating that 1, 256 children being abused countrywide, representing 28 percent of all the victims of GBV.
Ms. Katongo says out of the 1,256 child victims, 999 were girls representing 80 percent while 257 were boys representing 20 percent of all abused child victims respectively.
She says the statistics further indicate that 2,356 were female adult victims while 797 were male adult victims representing 53.4 percent and 18.1 percent respectively.
“A comparison with the Second Quarter of 2019, a total of 6,139 GBV cases were recorded last year compared to 4,409 recorded during the Second Quarter of 2020 showing a decrease by 1,730 cases translating to a 28.2 percent decrease.
“Under sexual abuse, 795 cases of sexual offences were recorded representing 18 percent of all the reported cases. Out of 795 reported cases, 596 victims were girls translating to 74.9 percent, 173 victims were female adults translating to 21.8 percent, 16 victims were boys translating to 2 percent, while10 victims were male adults translating to 1.3 percent,” Ms. Katongo said.
She says a total of 554 cases of child defilement, all girls were recorded representing 12.6 percent of all the reported GBV cases and that Lusaka Province recorded the highest number of child defilement cases with 206 translating to 37.2 percent of the child defilement cases reported countrywide.
Central Province came second 79 cases translating to 14.3 percent, followed by Eastern Province with 72 cases translating to 13 percent while Copperbelt Province had 44 cases translating to 7.9 percent and Southern Province recorded 43 cases translating to 7.8 percent of the reported defilement cases.
Other Provinces are Northern with 29 cases representing 5.2 percent, Luapula 24, representing 4.3 percent, North Western 21, representing 3.8 percent, Muchinga 20 representing 3.6 percent while Western Province had 16 reported cases representing 2.9 percent.
She says 115 rape and 12 attempted rape cases were recorded during the period under review and that the country also recorded 55 cases of indecent assault out of which 26 victims were women, 20 girls, 7 men and 2 were boys with 12 cases of incest recorded in which 10 were women and 2 were girl victims.
“Under Physical Abuse, the country recorded 2,082 cases translating to 47.2 percent of the reported cases of which 327 translating to 15.7 percent were male victims, 1,601 cases translating to76.9 percent were females, 78 cases translating to 3.8 percent were girls and 76 cases translating to 3.7 percent were boys.
“Further, during the period under review, the country recorded 24 GBV murder cases compared to 20 recorded in the second quarter in 2019, showing an increase by 04 cases or 16.7 percent increase. The 24 murder cases recorded represent 0.5 percent of all the reported cases out of which 12 victims were female adult translating to 50 percent, 11 male adults translating to 45.8 percent, and 01 girl translating to 4.2 percent,” she said.
