Rise in Rape Cases Concerns Health Ministry

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Rise in Rape Cases Concerns Health Ministry

2:02 CAT | 05 Jan 2016

AIM News

Mozambican Health Minister Nazira Abdula has expressed concern at the increase in the number of rapes reported over the Christmas and New Year holidays.

Speaking at the opening session of a meeting of her Ministry drawing up a balance sheet of its activities over the festive season, covering the 20 December to 3 January period, Abdula said that 130 rapes were reported, compared to 91 in the same period of 2014/15. This is an increase of 42 per cent.

Of particular concern, added the minister, is the fact that many of the victims are children under the age of 14 – and in some cases as young as five.

Nonetheless, the festive season was, in general, peaceful across the country, with a reduction in the number of traumas requiring medical intervention. Compared with the previous year there was a decline both in traffic accidents and in assaults. The total number of traumas dealt with by health staff was 2,661. Abdula did not give a comparative figure for last year

It seems that, in general, party-goers heeded the repeated warnings from the police about fireworks. Only 38 injuries caused by fireworks were reported, compared with 138 in the 2014/15 festive season – a decline of 72 per cent. Most of the fireworks injuries were minor – but in one case, in the northern city of Pemba, the victim lost fingers on one hand.

Abdula said the public had responded well to the Health Ministry’s appeal for blood donors. As a result no hospital ran out of blood, and all 3,000 requests for blood over this period were met.

Currently the health service still has about 1,200 units of blood (each unit is half a litre). This compared with 1,273 units in the entire country reported before the Ministry’s Christmas appeal for blood donors.

Source: AIM News