Mozambique: Secretary of State condemns abuse of trainees

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Mozambique: Secretary of State condemns abuse of trainees

6:15 CAT | 13 Aug 2020

File photo: Portal do Governo de Moçambqiue

The Secretary of State for Youth and Employment, Osvaldo Petersburgo, has become the first member of the Mozambican government to condemn publicly the sexual abuse of women police trainees by their instructors at the Matalana training centre on the outskirts of Maputo.

“Everything that contributes to halting the development of young girls is to be condemned”, said Petersburgo, when questioned by reporters during celebrations of International Youth Day on Wednesday.

“We want girls to conclude all the cycles of education, whether they are in the defence and security forces, or in general education and professional and higher education”, he said. “We want girls to affirm that that they are capable of concluding a course, and that they are able to be trained and to form a family”.

The police and the Interior Ministry are so far refusing to comment on the scandal, but a dispatch from the General Commander of the police, Bernadino Rafael, was leaked to social media, in which he said that 15 trainees had been impregnated by their instructors at Matalana.

The instructors have been suspended, and are barred from setting foot in the Matalana centre, but many voices in civil society are demanding that they should be jailed, and that there should be a full investigation into the scandal.

Rafael said that the abused women must cut short their training, return to their home provinces, but remain eligible to return to Matalana for the next course.

Some of the women, with evident signs of pregnancy, were spotted last week at Maputo airport, on their way home.

Source: AIM