Mozambique: Civil society calls for expansion of integrated centres for victims of violence

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Mozambique: Civil society calls for expansion of integrated centres for victims of violence

7:09 CAT | 29 Jul 2022

Image: Notícias

Mozambican Civil Society Organizations have called for expansion and improvement of Integrated Care Centers for Victims of Gender-Based Violence (CAIVV’s) and shelters throughout the country.

The appeal was expressed on Wednesday, in Maputo, by the representative of Forum Mulher (the Women’s Forum), Lídia Ngulele, during the presentation of a study entitled “Positioning of Civil Society in relation to Improving the Care for Victims of Gender-Based Violence and Shelter Homes.”

According to Ngulele there are only 24 centers in the entire national territory for victims of violence, four of which are in Maputo city.

“It is urgent to advocate for the expansion and improvement of integrated and comprehensive care in CAIVV’s, to ensure that women receive the appropriate care for their physical and emotional state in an integrated manner and in a single space”, Ngulele said.

“The scarcity of specialized services conditions the provision of care to survivors with the desired quality”, she stressed.

She also explained that the provision of integrated care encourages women victims of violence to gain courage to report their tormentors and not give up.

Integrated care, she added, greatly reduces the possibility of women being revictimized. It encourages reporting, as well as reduces the costs in seeking services by women victims and survivors.

“It is important to mention that an adequate response to Gender-Based Violence implies the introduction of reforms in the application of the available legal instruments, including a restructuring of the scheme of service provision, aimed at making assistance to survivors of violence more flexible, comprehensive and effective, and with the necessary resources”, Ngulele said.

“The need for shelter for women survivors of violence cannot be minimized, much less ignored. Placing a woman survivor of violence in a home for the elderly or a nursery school, as is being done in some cases in Maputo, is putting her own dignity at stake”, she explained.

Ngulele pointed to the lack of transport of survivors of violence in case of transfer and in case of processing of files for the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Legal Aid Institute (IPAJ), as factors that delay justice.

Source: AIM